Day 02 – 30 Day Horse Challange -Last Time You Rode and What You Did

Last time I rode was yesterday. I was on Joey (the chestnut from the previous post), who is a 16 y/o Hanoverian, though I think he looks more like a TB than anything else--likely because he's too out of shape to look like a beefy warmblood, and he's a little guy, only around 15 hands.

Old picture

He didn't want to move off my leg from the walk, so we did a lot of walk-trot transitions to rev him up and get him more connected. While we were trotting I worked on controlling his pace with my seat and relaxing my inner thighs, which I think wanted to grip since he is so much narrower than Shadow-man.

Then a little left-lead canter from the trot (which is difficult for him--he is much easier to canter from a walk), which was lovely. He gave me that nice, uphill, springy canter I know he has in him--I think because I was helping him to maintain the pace with my seat rather than leg, leg, leg. There is nothing better than a canter that just makes you feel happy to be alive. Then long rein walk, and some more walk-trot transitions.

Had some trouble getting the right lead canter--my trainer was giving a lesson to someone else, but she saw I was having issues. She told me to counterbend and give with my right hand. Took like two tries for me to get it, but then bingo! New trick learned. And we ended on a long rein after he got that right lead for like 3 strides. While he was cooling out I practiced my 2-point since I haven't done that in a long time. Felt funny doing 2-point in a dressage saddle though :)

All in all (since some of the time was spent staying out of the lessoner's way while she was jumping), probably amounted to a good 30 minutes of work. I was certainly tired and it was like 80 degrees yesterday so Joey worked up a little sweat too.

No challenge post tomorrow--I will be traveling to Pittsburgh to get my sangria on with my BFF :) Byron will be picking up our new Siamese kitten, so when I return on Sunday prepare to be inundated with cuteness.