I had a very educational morning with my dressage instructor today. She and I spent time with her warmblood mare, Nina and Tina. We watched them move at all gaits and evaluated their angles, confirmation, motivation and general way of "going". It was great to spend the time with Loma and better understand what she looks for in a good dressage horse. Tina did well and showed some confidence, but also her underlying wariness. I continue to work with her innately unconfident nature and focus every session on building bravery. Nina, on the other hand, has enough confidence for 3 horses and showed off her extreme play drive. I have played with Nina for quite a while so Loma got to see her horse fresh and full of fun. We had some good laughs.
We spent quite a long time with the 2 fillies, probably 2.5 - 3 hours. I grabbed a little lunch and then decided to spend time with Z. I'm still evaluating the CSI pad and while I really like it, I think I need to switch to the bigger size. It's just too close of a fit for my saddle. If it shifts at all, it's not under the saddle anymore. I've figured out my shims, too. I'm pretty happy with how it's going. Gemini also liked it when I rode him in the dressage lesson the other day. It's well worth the money, just need to get the right size.
I'll start selling my Theraflex pads now.
Chrissy came out with her horse for some play time, too. I had gone out front with Z to ride in the cross country course and I had Kyle rebuilding a jump for me. This caused the horses to run to the south pasture to see what was up. This then caused Cowboy excitement to be with the herd and focused his attention on what they were doing instead of Chrissy. She struggled a little with getting Cowboy's focus again. She asked me to play with him to help her see how to be his leader. What a fun horse!! I've always just adored Cowboy but I haven't played with him in months. At first, he tried to tell me he didn't need a leader. Then he told me I was being too strong. After about 5 mins we had our communication right and started having some fun. I remember how slow he moves and it made me giggle. Compared to my other horses, he's pretty low energy. He's also pretty dominant and not interested in working very hard. I had a good time with him though!! Not sure if it helped or hindered Chrissy to watch us play. She did try COD with him after and got some nice slow, but fairly correct ones.
I also started trimming horses. I'm behind with trims as I have an arrangement with a boarder to trade trims for board fees. It's very tough to get the schedule worked out right. I've got to get caught up on trims w/o her until we get things on more of a schedule. I got Z's fronts done before my arm was too sore to do more. I was cold too. Tomorrow I'll tackle more feet while wearing my arm brace.
1 comment:
Cowboy sounds very much like Earl, who would much rather walk than trot. It is a challenge to cue him correctly. He tends to ignore light pressure but if I squeeze or bump him too hard he stops and throws his head up.
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