So on Wednesday night I went out and had a little ride on Chilly. We just did walk/trot for about 20 minutes. We were both a little stiff still from the weekend but it was good to get back in the saddle.
Thursday night we ended up having two other horses in the ring with us and silly me still wanted to work on our 'goals', Chilly just wanted to hang out with the other horses. I was pushing to get back to where we were when we ended off on Sunday but Chilly was focusing on the other horses and what they were doing. I kept going and even tried to lope her in a circle. The other girls waited at the other end of the ring so that we could do a 20 meter circle at one end, but again Chilly just wanted to be with her friends. We had several near misses, as we drifted away from our circle and into the crowd. At one point I nearly came off as I tried to get her to turn, and she ran towards the other horses. We did lope a bit down each long side to end on a decent note and then went back to the rail with the other girls and long trotted her for a bit to let her and me burn off some frustration. A lot of my issues were that I was bracing though my entire body trying to keep it together, and hold my position in hopes that it would keep me in the saddle.
I went home feeling like a bit of a failure. What kind of rider was I if I couldn't even canter a circle or sit to what I have been told is a very easy to sit lope.
But like the good horse student I am I went home and made a list of what good has happened in that ride-
-We rode with 2 other horses in the ring and were able to avoid them at all times (other than while cantering) this is a huge impovement in 2 weeks.
-Despite the fact that I was loose in the saddle and Chilly was somewhat out of control, she stayed under me. A more nervous youngster, or one that didn't care about her rider could have ducked a shoulder and spun out from under me with very little effort.
-We loped within 3-5 long trot steps several times. On the weekend it was taking 10-15 steps of long trotting to get even a step of a lope.
I think my 'goals' of loping lots of circles right away weren't such a great idea. I have to remember that she doesn't have a ton of saddle time, and that as calm and mature as she seems she's still a baby.
So on Saturday D told me to tack up Oscar and we had a training ride. My goal was to treat Oscar like a baby and to get comfortable asking him the things I should be asking Chilly at this time. D had me lifting my arms all over the place and getting Oscar do do things while my arms were up in the air. This was to get me out of my "equation box" hand position. D wanted to remind me that with babies sometimes you can't sit pretty, that you have to get down and funky to get the job done, rather than giving the cues like you would give them to an adult horse and hoping they figure it out. For example, sometimes you need to get a hand up in the air to pull the horses head to the side so that their weight will shift in the direction you want, while on an adult horse you might only have to move your hand an inch or two.
D also got me loping on Oscar, which is not normally fun. His hocks and stifles are shot and because of that he has a very bouncy lope. D had me sitting deep, rounding my back a little and getting my hands way out in front of me and 'chasing' him into the lope. The 'chasing' him with my hands loosed up my upper body and kept me from bracing my back and hips, and with my back a little rounded it allowed my hips to close a little more. I find it hard to have a full range of motion with my hips to begin with but having them with a little more of a closed angle allowed that little bit of range that I have to be fully functional, and follow the horses movement rather than trying to just hold the 'upright' position. Basically I went from riding in a dressage 'frame' to riding more in a 3 point position, approaching the base of a jump.
It made a HUGE improvement! For the first time in 2 years I was able to lope on Oscar and not feel like my a$$ was bouncing out of the saddle with every stride. I felt like I knew how to ride again! So for the next week until Thursday (when his owner comes home for a month) I'm going to ride Oscar, and D is going to pick up Chilly again and push her on the lope issue. I'm backing off and sticking to the steering and walking and jogging for a bit until she gets some more lope miles on her.
Barbie pony, that one of my old lesson kids owns looks like shes going to be having her baby in the next 24 hours. It will be by the same sire as Chilly and should be a nice looking baby.
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