Ride #4

Saturday was the fourth ride of the year, since he was given a full week off with the little bit of puffiness next to the tendon. I’m happy that a week of Surpass and rest was enough to bring him right again. I rode Wednesday and then had a Board meeting on Thursday for the National Show, and then it snowed on Friday and by the time I got home, I had zero desire to go anywhere else. 

Saddled and ready to go

Ashke whinned at me when I walked into the barn and was very disappointed to not be greeted with a couple of carrots, but forgave me when I gave him a couple of minty muffins. He was loving and eager to get the blanket off, licking any part of my coat that he could reach. This is typical behavior after being given anything with peppermint. 

Our Selfies are on fleek

I was waiting for my barn mates to show up, but after Ashke started weaving back and forth with impatience, I decided to warm him up. We just do not do well with waiting. We went into the indoor and started our walking on the rail, making note of the wet spots in the footing. There are a couple of leaks in the roof, but even with the water, the footing is still good and not slick. However, the wet spots make dark patches that are obviously portals to hell. Take note and ride close at your own risk.

Ashke spent the entire ride snorting softly, but he felt really happy to be worked. We had one spooky moment at one of the muck buckets that has a permanent home along the rail, which I finally stopped and had him sniff, then it was a non-event. 

We did some long, forward trot to help loosen up his hips and SI area, which was about the time Kat’s owner Flambé got to the barn. She brought me a Caramel Apple Spice, which I chugged while walking a couple of circuits around the arena. By the time I finished the drink, she was ready to ride Kat and Ashke relaxed even more. He really prefers to have other horses in the arena with him. 

We still really haven’t figured out that you can’t eat the phone

I did some trot work and then started on our leg yields, which are getting so good. He is able to hold the bend, while keeping his body straight as we move sideways across the arena. We did that in both directions for figure 8’s and then took a walk break. I was joking with Flambé about a FB convo we had about riding our horses to Florida and how we really should start by trotting the entire circle around the indoor. I was pretty funny, but my humor loses something in translation. As with a lot of things.

Our next exercise was the half-pass at the trot in a Figure 8. Ashke is so much better about letting his shoulder lead just a bit, maintaining his bend and stepping sharply forward and out. It really felt amazing, even in the direction of his “hard” side. Like sometimes happens with Ashke, the week off resulted in additional effort and understanding on his part. The half-pass feels magical. Each time we work on these sets of exercises, I can feel the additional ease with which he is able to reach up and under himself with his hind legs. It has taken the hock injections for him to be able to try (without needing to deal with pain, or the anticipation of pain) and then steady and relentless diligence to get the movement better. I don’t drill, but we do incorporate this movement into every training ride we do and the persistence is paying off.

Yeah, our Selfie game needs halp.

Our next exercise was the canter in both directions, in a 30 m circle, at least twice around the arena before slowing down. Still such a difficult gait for me to ride, but we are both getting better as we go along. The big circle canter is to help him loosen up before moving into the more collected work. I went on to do serpentines with canter-walk-canter transitions for four times up and back, then we did flying changes in the same serpentine pattern for the same number of times (8 changes). His changes from left to right were awesome, but a little hesitant from right to left. We did a walk break and then went back to the canter-walk-canter transitions in the serpentine. He was just a touch bouncy the first two times I requested the transition, but then figured it out and gave me what I was asking for without getting anxious. 

This was huge. Two weeks ago we were still fighting about who gets to decide where and when the changes happen. Today, he accepted that I was the one to dictate the change. Not that there wasn’t a bit of discussion the first couple of times, but that “mixed up” period of him being excited and anxious about giving me another change was much shorter and we worked it out after two tries. We did two more flying changes going down the arena, with canter-walk transitions coming back up. He was flawless. It felt so awesome. Again, we don’t drill but we are incorporating some form of changes interspersed with non-changes in every ride. The ear pinning and tail swishing and outright anger at being told to wait for the change was less this ride as well. 

See? We are learning.

We were done. He got tucked back into his blanket with a feed of grain (Equine Senior) and some kisses. It was a great ride, even if it didn’t really do much to advance our goal of riding our horses to Florida.