Ride On

I love days like yesterday. A semi – decent day at work, a yummy lunch of Jamaican with the bestie, and…lovely weather for riding up top in the outdoor ring. The ring is ginormous. Something like 200x300. It had just rained the day before, and the ring had been dragged. Umm, perfect footing anyone? I think yes!

I arrived at the barn at my usual time to find K already there and getting ready to ride Rocco. I like having someone to ride with up top. It’s a little safer I think.

 

I got Vinny ready complete with matching saddle pad and ear bonnet. Fly-sprayed him down, grabbed crop, drink, and sunglasses and headed up the hill to the ring. The clouds over us looked like storm clouds but it was just a façade. The temperature was perfect. About 70 maybe, with a nice breeze.

I let Vin walk around the ring once to get used to the outdoor surroundings. There is a log pile up there with a black tarp over it so I like to let him look so there’s no surprises later when we’re working.

 

We began our usual routine of picking up a nice trot and doing a few laps around the rail to warm him up. It didn’t take nearly the usual effort to pick up our initial walk to trot transition. I had him circle at the far end of the arena, focusing on bending and pace. We were sloppy the first time. I feel like he’s always a little short when we first warm up, but maybe it’s just laziness. I let him continue down the long side and I do the ole’ sit and squeeze until he has more of an active pace. We do some changes of direction and add in some more circles and finally work on keeping an extended trot the entire way around the ring. He was being so good.J

 

After a short walk break, I asked for the canter. He didn’t immediately pick it up, but did pick it up within a reasonable amount of time so I was pleased with that. I love the canter he has in the outdoor. Yes, it seems to be different than the indoor. I can only assume this is because he has way more space to move than normal. I wouldn’t say it’s faster, or more collected. I would say it’s just more float-y, pretty, and he maintains the same pace. We do some big circles, small circles, I use full seat on the short sides, then half seat on the long, asking him to stretch out a little more. After that I had him canter over a cavaletti. in the center of the ring then change directions. The idea was to have a flying change be HIS idea since he doesn’t have changes at the moment. This didn’t work out as planned, but I feel we did make some progress. When I realized he wasn’t going to land on the correct lead I had him break to trot and do a simple change each time. The amount of trot strides did get fewer and fewer so I was happy. I also changed it up and had him do simple changes across the long diagonal-which he was great at.

 

Finally, we did a few more laps of trot work. Sitting and collected on the short sides, posting and extended on the long. Vinny was fantastic.

 

We went back inside and I curried the heck out of his coat concentrating on the sweat marks. Once I got those out back in his stall he went with a couple of cookies I made for him.

 

Went home. Ate. Painted nails again. Beddiebye.

 

I love my horsey.