I'm better now but I was still cranky this morning. Still kind of cranky now. It's getting annoying, but I can't seem to shake it. I didn't sleep well, despite the animals actually letting me sleep in til 8:30. It was still super cold too. And last night we had more snow flurries. Nothing stuck, but it did drop below freezing so there were threats of icy roads.
Anyways, Dan had an appointment with Kathleen this afternoon for his massage and I desperately wanted to ride. But I also had to spread poop and get dog and cat food and Mike's mom is coming tomorrow to take us to lunch for our birthdays, so.. the house needs to be cleaned. So... I got rolling and fed animals and then went and got dog and cat food. Then I came home and spread poop and finished cleaning the stalls. My plan was to then go to Ashland, dressage, then hack, then go to Taylors to meet Kathleen. Good deal!
I grab Dan, pull clothes off the other two as it's actually starting to warm up in the sunshine, and load Dan up. We get about 3 minutes down the road and Lucy texted and said the arena's were way to sloppy to ride. Ugh.... At this point.. it's too late to just hack and get to Kathleen as her first horse (rather than the second) and it's going to be a really long hack if I just hack. Oh well. Maybe the jump arena is open. And luckily, it was. Still not ideal, as I can dressage around jumps at home. Although my arena is still soup too.
So we continued on and tacked up and went and rode in the jump arena. It wasn't too bad. Although from up there, you could see how sloppy and nasty the dressage arena's were! Dang! Doubt we'll be riding there tomorrow either. So we hopped on and warmed up and did our thing. He was actually pretty super. He started a little slow and sticky but we got his engine revved. And someone had put down four ground poles so we trotted over those. They weren't quite the same as the cavalettis' but pretty darn close. It really helped to keep going back through them throughout our ride. We worked on keeping the tempo slow, using my core and upper body to keep him halfhalted and rocked back, and... we got some good work. We are still struggling in the canter half pass (and trot half pass) left, but got some good stuff today. He seems to get stuck going sideways. Well, he can't go sideways. When we go right, he can make it across the whole arena in the length of the arena. But when we go left, he can't quite make it all the way across before we run out of arena. Which is okay.. it's strength and I'm sure I'm blocking him somehow. But we did manage to get some really good steps sideways. And he was much more rocked back and uphill, so.. maybe that's the ticket.
Kelli watched some and said that was some of the best work she's seen him do! She said that our beginning counter canter loops were amazing! He was upright and straight out of his withers within his neck and round and engaged and really reaching with the hind end. She said as we did it more, he lost it a little. Which is good to know as I wasn't sure if he was too straight, so I had tried to ask for a little more counter bend, and apparently, he lost the suppleness with that. So, good to know! Keep him upright and straight and don't focus on the bend so much for now.
Then we watched Marvin go a little bit. He looked good. Then I did a quick hack around the little lake and we headed to Kathleens. I felt so bad because apparently she didn't do the other horse because he was out in the pasture and no one else was there. So she just waited for us. OOOPS!! I could have gotten there earlier had I known! Oh well.
Oh, and he was a good boy for his massage. He LOVES Kathleen. She said he felt great and she could tell he was doing the cavaletti work. :) She was quite pleased with him and his body. yay!
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