New Saddle Pad, New Movements

Yesterday I headed out in the morning to go play disc golf on the coast. Unfortunately I had pulled a muscle in my hip on Tuesday last week and it was still killing me. And SIL (who I was playing with) was sick, so we played eight holes and called it a day.

Obviously stopping by the tack shop on my way home was a MUST. I love browsing in tack shops but I'm in between horses right now so I don't usually buy anything. Until the check is written for TC, I'm not going to buy him anything (he'll need a halter and I'll need whatever supplies I don't have left over from Rico) and Rico is just hanging out and doesn't need new things either.

BUT I did realize that I wanted a few more fun saddle pads. I have two non-black/white ones, one is my striped cream colored one and one is the black and yellow daisy pad (seen in the pictures I posted last week).

I found a really cute navy blue with baby blue/cream piping that I just loved so I picked it up. If I buy TC, his color is probably going to be blue, just because it looks nice on him. If I don't buy him, blue is a pretty generic color and I'm sure that whatever horse I do buy will look fine in it. But the damn horse better pass his vet check! He needs more blue things that I refuse to buy for him right now.

He looks good in blue

Once I was back from the tack store, I tormented Rico with standing in the cross ties drying off (the worst thing ever) from a bath (the second worst thing ever) while I cleaned all my tack. I then walked down the road and back on Rico with my dad on Riot. Rico showed off his piaffe and passage skills in the dirt along the road. His passage isn't powerful anymore but his piaffe is still amazing! He was totally even and on the spot, very elevated. Ahhh I love that feeling.

So after a fun time schooling impressive movements on my Grand Prix horse, I went to ride a horse who struggles with equally as impressive movements like being straight and not falling over at the canter.

He's a pretty impressive looking horse, you
have to admit

But TC proved to be surprisingly fun today (not that he isn't fun every day but today was especially fun).

We couldn't go to the neighbor's because they were having some big western event over there so I did my first full ride in the home arena in over a week. If you remember, I used to LOVE our home arena and dread riding in all other arenas due to TC's erratic behavior anywhere but this one sandbox. But over the course of the last week, he's been amazing at the neighbor's and I really appreciate the added energy he has over there.

Today wasn't so bad though. I feel like I finally have my horse back from the clinic. It wasn't that the clinic wasn't helpful, but he lost a lot of confidence due to the whole fiasco. He's been kind of reluctant to be steady in the bridle and forward off my leg, but today I felt like I had my horse with the magical connection and excellent go button back. I love this horse in the bridle, if he doesn't pass the vet check, I'm stealing his connection and installing it in the next one.

This one wasn't always great in the connection, I feel spoiled now

So we legitimately got to work on fun things rather than connection and forward and straight.

I started out with some general circles, working on straightness and getting him forward, but TC immediately wanted to canter on the left lead (we were going left so I went with it). But he didn't want to canter like a normal horse, he wanted to canter like he was jumping bounces all the way down the longside. I appreciate the effort, but I kicked him forward and he actually gave me some excellent balance. One thing I really do appreciate is that he didn't buck at all, he really embraced the no bucking rule, which is good because I don't think I can throw him off balance to stop the bucking like I used to! He's too strong now.

Back to trot, we worked a little on leg yields but there was another rider in the arena which made it difficult to find a good line where I wasn't always in her way. However, the leg yields are definitely coming along, even if they are a bit crooked and he has to really REALLY think about them.

Love the neighbor cows

This one was being so cute!

My main goal today was to start buckling down on a stretch circle at home. I think I'll work on that every day during warm up before we head to the neighbor's (where it will be difficult to get him to stretch) so that he starts using the base of his neck a little more and becomes more comfortable down there.

We had some really good success, I worked on connecting him to the outside rein, then overbending a bit and softening both reins while asking him to be slightly straighter. He definitely understood where to go, but he kept charging off, getting on the forehand, and then not wanting to stretch down. But who could blame him? If he's already charging downhill, the last thing he wants to do is put his neck down, he'd probably sumersault. So this was a good time to remind him of the slow trot from the clinic and it worked!

We did some transitions from stretchy trot to stretchy walk and... back? Kind of. He doesn't really understand walk-trot transitions yet, at least not quick ones. He comes into walk and goes phew now a break so when I ask him to trot again, he gets really wiggly and throws himself into trot. So he learned all about quick walk-trot transitions today and by the end he was really embracing it.

To end, I let him drill the roundness at the canter. He was pretty enthused about it actually. He was quite a bit rounder today than he's been in the past and there were moments where I actually felt like I was on a poorly schooled Training level horse rather than a baby. Progress!

Such a good baby!

And tomorrow... procrastination procrast- procr- thesis!