Doesn't Have To

Sunday I rode Rico! He had been given both Friday and Saturday off because of Expo, but I was eager to get him out and get more steps enjoy riding him.

Pictures from a recent trail ride because I'm boring

I dressed him up in his blue sparkly pad and my pretty blue polo wraps, but forgot the sparkle whip in my car. Boo. Poor Rico, so embarrassed that the whip didn't match.

He was actually kind of lazy. I had begun to think that I must have been so silly when I was riding him to think that he was a lazy horse- he's so responsive and forward and... hah, nope. The more dressage Rico does, the less he wants to do dressage, and I think he's hit that point.

I think I need to take him somewhere new this week to entertain him, so I'm working on that- we did do a trail ride on Monday, which he appreciated.

Because Rico isn't the king of his own castle, despite his own beliefs, we still did dressage through the laziness. He was fine. He wasn't as easy to get going, but he didn't try to stop all the time like he used to. We actually did get some good work, he just didn't seem as into it. I don't blame him, most of the ride was working on the basics.

This pad is my life, I thought I had lost it (or Tracey would have
been tortured with it) but I finally found it!

We started in canter working on getting him more energetic so that I could practice my canter work. I think I've pretty much fixed my issue with that, which is good news. I even worked on it in a client's lesson recently, which helped me get a really good visual to work with.

I then went to work in sitting trot and noped out of that after the first boob slam reminded me that I hadn't put on a sports bra that day. Woops. So we went back to canter and did some tempi changes.

Rico has clean changes usually, but he's been getting lazy about them as I let more people on him. It's no one's fault, just that as the aid becomes less precise (due to leg length and just differences in timing), he thinks he can be less precise. He cannot. He learned that again on Sunday and then was awesome. We did some fours, threes, and ended with five twos.

Love this place

Treeeee

Then I played with a bunch of canter-walk and walk-canter transitions. Those also tend to get sloppy when they aren't worked on. He's exceptionally easy to ride them well on, but not easy to ride them exceptionally well on. Like anyone can get a solid 7 on them, but he's capable of a 9. All you have to do to get a balanced transition is to let him know you want to walk by not actively asking him to continue cantering, and then for the love of god do not touch his face. But he lands in a walk that isn't perfectly well prepared for cantering off again. So I had him land in a collected walk instead, which is slightly harder.

We also worked on doing this out of the counter canter, which is harder for him. His counter canter isn't as strong as his true canter, so walking out of it usually entices me to do the one thing you should not do in a downward transition- do literally anything. So I worked on using my seat and leg a bit better to help him balance in the counter canter and get the downward better.

Such a pretty place

The dog loves attention from anyone

In canter I thought to myself these words: he's so straight right now, I could get him to jump the skinniest of skinny jumps. I let myself get all superior feeling about it and then cantered him over a mounting block. Wait, that's what I hoped would happen. Turns out that you can be as straight as you want to be, but sometimes your horse reminds you that he's only being straight because he's listening to you and that he doesn't have to listen to you if you ask him to do something stupid like jump a mounting block.

Oh well, he isn't a huge fan of jumping anyway and neither am I. We ended with some posting trot work (I kind of forgot that posting doesn't hurt boobs earlier) and worked on getting a little more power coming from the right hind. He felt only slightly uneven, pretty good for a horse who is a year and a half out from his last injections. We did a little shoulder-in, but mostly just trotted around working on connection and keeping me slightly in the back seat. Boring, but necessary.

Rico's girlfriend right as she struck the fence
and I got whipped around in a spin

Down the road, we saw Rico's ugly girlfriend, who was flirting with him a lot. At one point she squealed and hit the fence with both front feet, causing it to shake. There was a bush along the fence, and the shaking fence caused the bush to shake and Rico was sure it was full of snakes and rabid mountain lions. He spun as fast as he's done in years and all I had to say was "whoa" (no reins because why be safe and hold reins on a trail ride?) and he stopped.

I love riding him again! It will soon be over when I get TC back because I'll refit the saddle and not  have as much time/energy to ride him, but I'm so enjoying this last month or so of riding him more.

Waiting patiently to go in his stall after getting yelled at for
thinking about trotting out of the barn