Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Squeezing some time in with Z

I'm so discouraged lately. With my broken ankle and my job, I've been moving forward at a snails pace with my horsemanship. My ankle is slowly getting better and I managed to get an hour of daylight after work today. Kendall came out with me, which is sometimes great but not when my time is limited. She wanted to ride Rain. So, I tacked up Z and Rain, did a little ground work with each of them and we went off to ride in the front pasture.

I wanted Kendall to work on transitions. She could really use the help with getting more control of Rain. Rain doesn't listen to her that well and worse lately than ever. Kendall gets very frustrated and Rain completely checks her out. I really should ride Rain more often myself, however she is a different horse when I ride her than when Kendall does.

Z had a lot of energy today, which I love. She was ready to go! I had Kendall, so I couldn't let her move out. Kendall got frustrated at one point because she and Rain weren't getting along so great and she gave up. I ponied the two of them back to the barn, tied Rain off, and took Z for a little bit of riding alone.

We rocked the teeter-totter, trotted over the cavalettis and then did some walk/trot transitions in the figure-8 pattern near my arena. She was quite soft today and had a tremendous backup. Her transition down was very in-tune with my body cues, as was her transition up. It felt really good to ride her. In the last 5 weeks, I've ridden about 3 times because of my ankle. However, I'm not quite ready - my ankle was sore during and after.

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