I have felt so guilty for not blogging these last days, but I've been busy and wasn't permitting myself to go to the barn or blog until I was caught up with my thesis. Which I am now, yay! Still got a long way to go, but I have a good start. Plus, Craig's parents came to visit this weekend so we were trying to get the front yard finished up plus do some cleaning and schoolwork.
I did go see Sophie last Tuesday, and rode. She was great. We're past the point of needing to trot right away in order to keep her moving, so we did a lot of walk work. Specifically small serpentines what were pretty much continuous 10 meter circles. It helped her come onto the bit because she still tends to brace at the walk until we do trot work to get her supple and giving. Plus I'd like to extend our rides past the 25 minute mark and thought it'd help to begin with adding more walk work. (Plus I tend to forget to work on stuff at the walk). We also worked on shoulder in a little, it wasn't great, but a good start I think.
The rest of our ride was spent imitating dressage tests. I'm thinking of entering a show October 6th, so we mainly worked on 20 meter circles and straight lines along the sides. We get great work by doing spiral circles and the like, but if we only practice spiral circles we're going to be screwed when it comes time to do a test that's nothing but huge circles and straight lines. I was also careful to do as many circles in the scary end of the arena as the not scary (as well as the center) and I'm happy to say that the scary end of the arena is almost not scary at all now!
One problem we did have in the ride was working on the canter. I wanted to work on making the transition crisper, so after a couple of ok ones, tapped her with the whip right after asking and she cantered, but it was fast and rushed and not balanced. Then our trot work wasn't very good, a little rushed, so we worked on that until it was calm and then cantering a couple more times. It took three tries before she was calm and balanced at the canter again. So I think I'll leave our canter transitions alone and not use the whip if she takes a couple of strides until we've done it more and had a lesson on it.
I still haven't had a lesson yet. I can't ride right now because I scraped my ankly up pretty good on our fancy schmancy new blocks and it will hurt like heck to put a boot on right now.
One final thing, Sophie's breeder is awesome!!!! She sent me pictures of Sophie as a baby, her mom, a full sister, and her sire. They arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm thrilled. I need to get them scanned and uploaded. One of the pictures of Sophie as a yearling shows some nice airtime at the trot even. I'm at school right now, but I'll get caught up with what everyone has been doing today at some point!
3 comments:
Good work on getting that thesis started. Sounds like your schooling went well to, if I were you I'd definitely go to the show in Oct. Shows are great for telling you where you are in your training and what you need to work on. And it's good to get out of the same old arena rut too and try someplace different.
Thesis???? Oh I am feeling for you right now girlie! When are you DONE with school?
I was starting to wonder where you went ;) How cool that Sophie's breeder sent you pictures! Can't wait to see them.
Now I'm jealous! You and Pony Girl both have baby pictures. Jack has only had one owner before me, she got him from the breeder. Maybe I should ask to get some baby pics too!
Glad you are caught up and back. Good luck with your show prep. I'm thinking of doing some dressage only shows this winter, too. Even though I'm having fun getting into eventing, I really love dressage! Winter would be a great time to concentrate on that since we'll be stuck inside a lot.
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