One more ride

 
At the moment we are on an “Once a week” ride schedule. And yes, it sucks.  Ugh. I’ll try not to complain, at least I get to ride.

So this week: I went shopping!  Yay!

Actually, it was important. I had to pick up a breastplate because last time I rode Copper, his cantering was really wild and unbalanced, and the saddle decided to relocate several inches over to the side. Thankfully, he was still sensible enough to stop when I asked him too.

He is so round and I can’t really tighten his girth much more, as he has pectoral scarring from old tears, so the only solution I could think of was a breastplate.

When I walked into Horseland, they were having a sale. Uh-oh!  Lol.  I end up buying him a Stockman’s breastplate, a navy Roma saddle pad with red & white trim (all the matching fhansay! *dies*) and a navy Dublin winter polo and navy fleece jumper for myself. Yup. Our color is navy.

- Plain, very serviceable, but suits the both of us quite well -

Anyway, enough distractions of all the shiny - on to the ride!

His walk was a bit restricted, I think he was feeling the interference of the breastplate in the forward reach of his shoulders, but I hope we can work past that. And his leg yields are getting pretty snappy!

His trot was mostly feeling good. Really swinging from my hips, and focusing on keeping my shoulders back and soft seems to be helping a lot. It’s like we’ve found the gate for the road to good trot work and now all we have to do is walk down it! (Ha! That sounds so simple, but I know it isn’t…)

As we worked I felt like we had some good moments of connection, but honestly – I don’t really know for sure. I am positively dying to get some video footage to see what’s really going on, but that seems to be another impossible at the moment. Ugh. Frustration again, but I have just deal.

His cantering was still wild and crazy. It seems like he’s forgotten everything he knows about cantering and is back to his hooning, *I’m a motorcycle!* impersonation days.

Take away: The breastplate did help and the saddle didn’t slip as badly. In fact, I think it would be just fine if he wasn’t running around like a ninny! I still want to look into a new contoured girth to see if that helps as well. It also might help him relax through his shoulders more which is always a good thing for an ex-trotter. 

He needs to activate his inside hind leg so that he can bring it further under him while cantering and balance properly. That means spiral in & out circles at a trot. And I’m slowly working at bringing in leg yields at a trot.

Currently he flips out and bolts off every time I shift my legs back to ask for the yield, so I’m all like - maybe I should try just asking with my seat first? *face palm* He probably does not need a leg aid at all. But we’ll see if I’m right!

And it’s time to school canter transitions. In the past he has struck off fairly nicely, but at the moment there’s a lot of leaping and flailing around which is not helping with the controlled balanced canter issue.

I am also hoping that practicing transitions will get him off the forehand enough to re-establish that crucial balance needed for nice cantering.

So there’s all that.

If only I could get down sometimes during the week - that would help too. Yes, I am feeling a little despondent about the complete lacking of riding time I seem to have. I positively hate being a weekend rider. It’s hard on me, but worse, it’s harder on Copper. I can’t really expect him to improve without putting in the time. And I really want to be able to do that… *sigh*

While I don’t have the answer yet on how to get those rides in, I am working on it, and I guess that’s the best I can do for now.

See ya,

bonita