Monday/Wednesday Ride Recaps

As I mentioned in my lesson recap I rode on Monday this week which is really unusual. My normal schedule has me riding Tuesday – Thursday during the week and both Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes I change my Thursday/Fridays depending on my plans and every once in a while I take Wednesday off and then ride Thursday – Sunday but I almost never ride Mondays. It’s the day after her lesson ride which is normally more intense and I appreciate the quiet evening after my first day back at work on Monday.

However, because she was so full of energy on Sunday and because of some plans that I had this week I went ahead and rode. It also worked out well with my visit to a local tack shop to special order some items. I just found out that this tack shop orders from HKM and that I could join in on an order and thus save shipping from Europe so I jumped on it. HKM is one of the few places that offers pony sized dressage saddle pads and other items. I had planned to order a couple of saddle pads but it seems my saddle pad obsession has recently turned into a breeches obsession and so I got one saddle pad and one pair of breeches to try. I’ll let you know what I think in a future post!

 

Checking to be sure my phone is still recording.
Look at what a powerful princess she's getting to be!

My ride on Monday was kind of a mixed bag. I had planned on doing cavaletti in the indoor or possibly just lunging over cavaletti in the indoor but once I showed up one of the other dressage people invited me out to ride in the outdoor. It’s funny because on trail rides or in the outdoors in general Katai is so brave and so calm (like during the hunter pace when I don’t think she spooked once) but she HATES the outdoor. All I can imagine is that it’s because it means work where a trail ride is something she thinks is fun.

At any rate, while riding out there more and getting her used to it would be idea the footing is a little deeper than I’d like and trying to lunge her just turns into her running around like a madwomen which makes me worried that she’ll hurt herself. Because of that I usually only ride in the outdoor now if someone else is out there because then I have my nice, calm, workable pony and I just don’t ride too long in the deep footing. This particular night was VERY windy. I thought we were going to blow away and everything was moving around in the grass and trees etc. so it was especially spooky. 

Look at that inside hind!

I hand walked her around and checked everything out (we startled a deer family so I was glad that I was on the ground) until our fellow rider showed up. Then her horse (who I later found out had only been in that area a couple of times) was spooky and about to lose his mind. Katai and I worked a bit and then spent some time babysitting him until his rider threw in the towel and decided to end her ride in the indoor. By then Katai had done a lot of canter work and a good amount of trot work so I called it, especially since the footing was more work and she had been worked hard the day before.

That inside hind though.
My pony is seriously Gumby if Gumby were good at dressage
I however am collapsed to the inside (hearing L in my head telling me that my pony needs to bend, not me)

Then on Wednesday I did a ride where I was going to really work on Cavaletti but she came out very, very stiff and not wanting to work through her back so we mostly worked on that and then did the cavaletti just a few times. Unfortunately I’m back to riding in my normal saddle and oh boy does it put me in a bad position. I had no idea until I rode in the other saddle how badly this one puts me in a chair seat but it’s bad. I almost flopped right down on Katai’s back the first time because I couldn’t keep my legs under me to keep me airborne for the extra moments at the longer stride. It’s frustrating that I’ll have to deal with it until the new saddle comes but I’m so excited that I’m getting a new saddle that will make it easier! I’ll probably just do more lunging sessions until it gets here and maybe do a low key bareback ride which would be good for both of us.