Working Equitation

On Mondays, Silver Quarter Acres let's us do Working Equitation in the indoor arena and tonight J came with me to set up, tear down and video. We had nine obstacles: the garroucha pick up, picking up a hoop, setting down the garroucha, the corridor with a bell and reinback, bridge (with a barrel on either side), the gate, a jump, a side pass pole, and slalom poles. Both C and I had worked most of those obstacles, so we were ready to work the entire course. Jac and her Friesan Dante have worked with us before, so she was ready. The other person who decided to join us brought her three year old Arabian.

Ashke was a freak. He reared and bucked a little bit. He danced and pranced like a poneh at the parade. He felt like a powder keg. Completely out of character. I don't know if he thought Monkey (the other arab) was cute or if he thought we were going to race the obstacle course. I just know he was a handful, even at the end of our ride. I finally made him work the edges of the arena doing leg yields to the quarter line and back to the wall.

Then I got off because my entire lower body was killing me. I pulled a lot of muscles I didn't realize when Ashke fell yesterday.

We originally were going to do the garroucha pole after the jump, but there wasn't enough room to set up for it. We didn't realize that until I ran through it the first time. Then when I swung around to pick up the hoop, I hit the cross bar square on and knew that I had to drop the pole.

Not our finest hour.

Our final run. Ashke did well. I thought he is beginning to bend nicely through the slalom poles. 

C had a couple of good runs through, although the first time through Bretia did not want to walk over the bridge. She wanted to park on the bridge and nose the barrels away. Her second run through was very solid and Bretia did a great job. The two women working in hand both did a great job as well. I think it is harder to work the obstacles from the ground, but they both seemed to have fun.