Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Sigh.

Take the title as you will, I think I went through all of the meanings of it last night.

First of all, moving and discombobulating an Ashley means that she does stupid shit like forgetting her babyschnookumsprecious dressage saddle at the barn. In the cold. Since Sunday. And didn't realize she didn't have it heading to the barn, and hyperventilating the whole freaking way.

As you can tell, I'm a functional horse parent this week. Luckily, the saddle was still there (also, pathetic that my saddle being stolen is a THING) and I arrived with medium weight blankets to finally get the kids out of their heavys in this warm weather. Foxie is already shedding and while I like the concept of the fleece neck thingy on her new Weatherbeeta Orican heavy weight, it is also a freaking hair magnet. Both girls are now in their mediums (Bailey's finally is repaired!) and seemed quite pleased. I also got rides in on BOTH ponies.

Bailey's ride I kept short and sweet - I changed a few things and felt like the results were quite positive. First, I set her saddle back behind her shoulder blades, and angled the girth like hell to make it work. I also put on her running martingale. She was super sweet on the ground and was very affectionate, and her good mood translated to being pretty good under saddle - looky, but not spooky which was a nice change. She was prompt and forward in her transitions and I got some good halts out of her, so when I felt the saddle start to slip, I just got off and let her be with that. I feel like her head tossing was much less extreme than last time - and I'd like to think it's because she had room for her shoulders to come up and through, rather than going "OW" all the time with her brainpan in the stratosphere.

Foxie also got ridden - a quick and dirty since I spent so much time scraping mud off of her, despite the blanket. Fox was lovely, though I have been discovering that Bailey is training ME - another source of sigh. I throw my outside rein away like crazy, which is much easier to realize then I'm riding the horse who charges off with you if you don't have contact on the outside. She even did some lateral work for me - I love riding that horse! Its nice to feel capable for 5 minutes, because riding the baby horse lately has been a shit show. (Sigh).

So my priorities now are to

1. Get up the guts to buy a total saddle fit girth.
2. Hold myself really accountable for rein length and clear aids
3. Ride Foxie more.
4. Once I get my stuff together, THEN start holding the baby horse accountable for her inconsistencies.

Here.
We.
Go. 

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