Back to Work Post-Storm

Yesterday I headed down to the ranch at lunchtime and dragged the arena to see what it looked like. And it looked awesome! So I got a good ride in on both horses. That was pretty good, it rained six inches and finished on Monday midday, then the arena was perfect on Wednesday. 

Both horses hadn't done much. They got ridden Saturday in the arena and then had Sunday off. Monday I road walked TC, then Tuesday I had planned on trail riding. TC and I made it up the hill but then he slid a lot going down the hill, so we just went straight home. That was such a bummer, it's dry enough for people but horses are a no go apparently. Oh well! 

But then Wednesday the ring was perfect. I probably could have dragged half of it on Tuesday and had a 20 meter circle to ride on, but that just seems like such a small space, especially for TC who I am trying to ride mostly on straight lines for his new postural work. 

Three days off but he's not looking bad at least!

Neither horse was worse for wear after three days of not riding though. TC came out a bit twisty but with a lot of walking and clicker training for posture, by the time we trotted, he felt amazing. 

One thing that I'm thinking a lot about with TC is his drifting with his haunches. He's not much of a fishtailer but he does find it way easier to move his haunches right than left. This means that tracking left, he's almost always in a shoulder-fore alignment and tracking right, he's almost always popping his shoulder a bit. Tracking left, it's manageable mostly because shoulder-fore makes him easier to ride. But tracking right, it's easy for him to jackknife and then the connection doesn't feel so great. 

On Saturday I hopped off of him and walked him in small circles, watching each hind leg. Then I put him into a walking turn on the forehand to see if it was more the abduction of the left hind or the adduction of the right hind that was harder for him. They both seemed fine but that's without my added weight and potentially faulty biomechanics (when I get a new saddle, I'll be enlisting a biomechanics expert to teach me for a bit I think!). 

On Wednesday, I rode him and ended up changing diagonals while tracking right. He immediately felt way easier to ride! The diagonal change meant that my right leg could come on when his right hind was in the air, making it easier to get him to adduct that leg. I tried the same thing tracking left but that felt less great (and on video he looked a bit less through) so I switched back. Basically he feels most confident when I'm posting on the left hind right front diagonal pair. So that's interesting information! 

Wrong diagonal, also my right hand is on the
struggle bus right now, I really want to get the
biomechanics trainer out nowwww ugh 

Sunny tripped a bit behind (which seems to be his tell when he's been off a few days) heading out but then felt solid under me in the arena. 

The exciting moment came at the end of our ride when my mom got on for the first time! She has been off riding for six months (and honestly more like since the fall before the pandemic because she didn't ride much during the pandemic and she doesn't ride in the winters) completely because of her hip injury. She is in physical therapy and her therapist said that she could slowly start riding again. I suggested that she just get on and walk him every time I ride him so that she could get back into it. 

I think she had grander plans because she got on and had some pain and just felt so defeated by it (hah I know where I get that from and it's clear that I will never outgrow that). I cheered her up and reminded her that if she just walked 2 laps every day for a week, then 4 laps every day for a week, and so on, that she'd be back to riding before the trails open up in the spring. She did feel better the more she walked him and had no trouble getting off of him and no pain afterwards. I showed her L's desk chair and she might buy one! 

He looks so much rounder now, not like in a dressage
way, but his body looks rounder vs angular

We got the schedule for the bodywork clinician! I go late on Sunday, it'll actually be getting dark as we ride. I'm going to pack TC's dinner into the trailer so that he isn't hungry during the session. Hopefully he's okay, he's going to get Saturday off and then we go so late that we'll be riding in the dark. I trust the horse with my life and all, but the stupid saddle I'm riding in has no blocks or anything that makes me feel secure! Soooo we'll see. 

Then on Monday, the clinician has agreed to stay and give five spots to Kate's barn and Kate was so nice to let me have one. I figure we'll see how it goes on Sunday and then I'll decide what to do with the Monday slot. The slots are two hours, one bodywork hour and one riding hour. If she wants to see TC again for both hours, I'll absolutely do it. But if she only wants him for one, I'd love to have her work on Sunny's body. He's been doing well but there are some things he does (like the sproingy fences and the weirdness in the connection and the fishtailing to the right) that I think she could help with. If I had some more information about how he's feeling, I could help him a lot I think. 

I'm taking all of Monday off of work to watch the clinic too! So that should be really good. I'm hoping to learn more to piece together everything I learned last time and everything I've figured out while playing around on my own and chatting with Kate about it.