Monday, I had a limited amount of time, but still wanted to ride. Lola did really well. I've realized she needs to build up her conditioning some, so I set timers and stuck to one gait until the timer went off. So we cantered for two minutes, which is surprisingly only a few laps around the arena.
We had another great lesson on Tuesday, despite the weather! We were stuck in the little indoor arena because it poured all day Tuesday. (Plus is was drizzling all through the lesson. Stupid rain!) So even though the indoor arena is perfect for free lunging over jumps, its tight for riding. So we worked on 20meter circles and started working on figure 8s. She was feeling silly, understandable for the weather, and was really looking and shying from a corner of the arena. This was great actually, because it was the first time the trainer has ever seen her have an issue with spooking, and gave us some great tips on how to work through it. The thing is, if I have her full attention, she's too focused to look at things. We didn't try any canter work since it is a small space, and there were some slick spots from being over watered.
Wednesday I went out at lunch and just turned Lola and Bear out to run through the puddles in the big arena, good enough footing still to gallop around like wild beasties, but I sure didn't want to ride in it! They had fun, and rolled, and that was it for the day.
Thursday we had our free lunge over jumps session. She did fantastic! Plus I got video! YEAH!
Here are just a few clips of the fun we had!
Then I hopped on her bareback with just the halter and rope (and helmet) and she was great considering she wasn't too sure about the whole yielding from the pull of the halter on a turn. She figured it out pretty quick.
Friday I was able to sneak in a quick ride before other plans. We warmed up really good with the circles and serpentines at the walk, then big trot circles. We had to get creative to ride in the very wet arena without hitting the deep mud spots. It meant splashing straight through puddles a few times, so she had to get over that. We ended with a big canter. Overall a good ride for the time I had.
Saturday was trail day!! Yeah! We had lots of ups and downs for building their butts, then came back to the trails that were a little less rocky to do some trot and cantering. Lots of fun! We did have two scary incidents! While crossing through some water up to their bellies, Lola suddenly hit a hole or a sinking spots because her head suddenly crashed into the water! She took two huge leaps forward to get out of it. She came out fine and the friend riding was fine, but watching it happen was scary, I thought they were both going down in the water! The second incident happened to Bear. The was a big old snake in the trail (rattler I'm pretty sure) and when Lola passed by it she trotted forward without my friend even seeing it. But having a horse walk right passed it got the snake pretty pissed off, so just as I came upon it and the snake came straight at me and Bear with its head raised to strike! VERY AGRESSIVE! I FREAKED out! I hauled Bear backwards as fast as I could and started to turn to go back the other direction, but as soon as I gave the snake a good five foot space again the snake slithered off to the bushes. CRAZY! It was like three feet long!
Sunday she had off, so Monday night I went out and did a little over fences work.
We started with just trotting over the poles on the ground.
Next we went to the little cross bar with trot poles leading in.
She was going really well, so I put up just a tiny vertical.
The vertical got better the second time since she got the canter stride after the poles.
Then made it into a little 2ft oxer. Excuse the equitation, it was 80 degrees with major humidity, and I was beat before I ever got to the barn, so I was very loose in the tack and getting left behind. She looks cute though!
We ended by just going back to the easy relaxing trot circle. She still isn't relaxing and stretching down in the bit because she's all hyped up about the fences, but over all it was a great improvement over last time. She's staying pretty steady up to the fence.
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