But it is the last day of my vacation. I had two glorious weeks off. I spent it mostly around the property with some time out to visit my mom and to go sailing.
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| sailing on a perfect summer day |
I rode almost every day. I loved it. I would get up, do the barn chores, relax over coffee and go ride. This allowed Carmen and I to really take a jump forward in her training. I'm no longer just happy with walk/trot/canter. Now I want to work on patterns and transitions.
I also wanted to evict the trolls. While I was not 100% successful I was about 90%. The reality is that Carmen does not like greenery blowing in the breeze. The other reality is that she now lives in Nova Scotia which is a small peninsula hung out into the Atlantic Ocean. This means that it's windy more times then it's not windy. I have learned that if she is not 100% with me on the ground then there's no point in mounting.
Twice I had to get back off to work through some spooky places but I get back on and we carry on. Today I to get off and work her again in the far side of the ring. She was fine on the ground and not too bad when we first started with the riding. But she worsened and it was at the point where we were getting no where because of her obsession with keeping her attention on the far side. So I got off and lunged her down there until she found her brain. When I got back on it was 100% better. We finished our work and I ended with getting her to walk and trot the entire circumference of the ring. At the walk we were able to maintain the rhythm. Not so much at the trot but we did trot the whole way so I took that as a win. When I was finished I saw that we had been in the ring for 90 minutes! I don't normally work that much but it seemed to be a critical point for us and that we needed to go through it.
We were both balls of sweat when we were done. I hosed her off making sure to do her legs well. When I was done I took her out to the field and let her go. She followed me right back to the barn. So I guess she was happy with it too.
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| hey where are you going? |
Tomorrow I return to work but that might be a good thing because I'm thinking that riding twice a day might be a good idea.....
LOL -- I think you're addicted to Carmen -- which is a very good thing. I envy you riding every day for two weeks. You must be much better in the heat than I am - do you have shade in your arena? I keep thinking I could handle it if there was a bit of shade.
ReplyDeleteWe took our vacations at the same time, but mine was away from the horses. I much prefer stay -cations. Carmen seems to have a good work ethic and so do you.
ReplyDeleteSo lovely to get so much riding in! :D
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