A Week of Rides

I've officially fallen off the blogging every day train... sorry guys. I suck. Between work and daylight savings, I haven't had a ton of energy or time to blog, though I did totally waste some time yesterday making flow charts about my day. I do want to keep writing about my riding, so let's do some looking back, and I'll probably wait to publish this until I have another ride under my belt, too.

Derp.

As of my last post, I was going to ride (last) Wednesday after work, so help me god. And I did. Arya got a a school in my dressage saddle, and BB got to wear jump tack and went for a hack afterwards.

Arya's rides are so boringly basic that they're hard to write about, but we do have a lot of important things going on during them. We still lunge every ride, but haven't had nearly as many issues with her getting up / feeling like the steering and brakes have gone out, so it's been really positive. I really enjoy riding her - she's a bit easier physically than Bailey (less bouncy) and it's nice to have the tool box to recognize and address her issues. We do basic walk/trot/canter every ride. Her canter has lately become super lovely - rhythmic and SLOW with no input from me, gloriously uphill and I can just hang out and ride that allllllll day if I am allowed to. Her strike offs are still a bit iffy going right, but she is slowly learning to not get frazzled and tries again without too many theatrics. We are still working on relaxation, bend and (all related to bending) swinging her barrel out when bending in. Her trot, especially, has remained tight and she takes quick, short steps. I think if I can convince her to stretch more and take longer, slower steps, we will really have a great mover on our hands.

Kids got mediums on for some colder weather, and Arya got to experience #neckcoverissues for the first time ever

Bailey has been going relatively well, but still feels weak and behind my leg, especially on the flat. I think, where the OTTBs learn to dig in and "sit" with wide back feet, Bailey wants to trail along at the canter on her forehand, which makes her canter in particular much less fun to sit on after Arya's. We continue to do a bit of lateral work, and a bit of work with me trying to push her up into my aids more completely. We also hacked around the outside perimeter of the pastures; I want her to get used to riding out into the area that will be our pasture and XC course next year, and while our first jaunt wasn't bad, it wasn't wonderful either. She's got a ways to go, but she's a good girl nevertheless.

The reason I skipped my Friday ride: it was snowing INSIDE my barn. And outside, too.

Friday I skipped my ride, but got out to do work on Saturday with a vengeance. I did a bad thing, though; I tried to do my chores before riding, and skipped lunch in the process. Not a good combo! I had a great ride on Arya (more on it in a second) but totally started to get dizzy and felt sapped of all energy by the time I got on Bailey. I cut her ride short and called it a day. Arya did more work and we covered a lot of the items above, with some added walking over poles. We haven't done that for a few weeks, so the first time I asked her to walk over the pole she stopped, but allowed herself to be booted over it without any issue. We took walk breaks throughout our ride and walked over poles, single pole, then over a pole contraption of 3 poles made into an open sided square. She even walked over the corner of two of them and gave some good snorts and dropped her head down several times and got more and more relaxed as we went on. Just 5,000 more repetitions before I'll try them at the trot again!

I don't have media for these last few rides (maybe I'll get some updated video from the Hubby of Wednesday's rides) but I do have some cute pictures of the girls from the last week (mostly staring at the donkey when we took her for a walk) so enjoy those scattered through this post!

Arya loves the donkey lately

Why donkey out of it's box

Wednesday update: 

I only got on Arya yesterday as I've really been struggling with a lack of body heat and feeling unwell for no legitimate reason. It was blustery and cool, with a good whipping wind, which definitely didn't help my motivation. Arya got to wear the Horze fleece quarter sheet and has similar views about it as a greener Bailey did; it's basically a giant black plastic bag that is chasing her. She ran pretty hard on the lunge line trying to get away from it, and bucked one of her back cracking bucks before settling down enough for me to get on her. We did lots of walk and trot, and while she was a looney tune for her right lead canter the first time, she cantered her lovelyperfectuphillhearteyesemoji canter going left and was better going right after that. We also walked over poles and did not put up any fuss there. Overall she was a very good girl for a day that challenged her with wind, and I was able to keep her brain in her head under saddle with few issues.

We did the same thing on Saturday, sans quarter sheet and Arya remained a bit... tail swishy and silly. Brain stayed in her head and other than more than a few moments of "I'm going to try to have a tantrum by refusing to bend or steer" was pretty good. I'm a bit suspicious that her back hurts, or that she's not relaxing or something, so she's spending a few days in a warmer blanket with her back on track sheet on, and I'm going to try to get her out and stretching more often. Bailey got skipped due to time, and I'm upset about this. I really need to deal with this fatigue issue; I ordered more solar lights this morning, and will post about them soon, so I need to stop giving up my opportunities to ride!