An Ideal Day

I'm sure that many of us have ideas of what our ideal day(s) would like like. There are so many things that I think would make up an ideal day. A beach in Greece with a Mimosa would certainly be an ideal day for example ;) This past Saturday though was the most ideal day, especially horse wise, that I've had recently.

To start off I got to sleep in and then had some of my homemade cold brew coffee with my favorite vegan creamer. I pulled Youtube up on my tv via ChromeCast and watched a bunch of riding videos.

I had a delicious lunch and then took a break to bring the Vegetable out for a walk. Around 12:30 I headed to H's barn for a Janet Foy clinic! What's really cool about this barn and these clinics with Janet is that it's a really small audience and most of the people watching are also riding. I think I was actually the only auditor on Saturday. They aren't advertised beyond an occasional Facebook post by the owner (H's trainer) and with the small number of people watching (2-5) every time I've been there Janet really interacts with everyone.

The other thing that makes it fun is that this barn has the highest concentration of upper level riders in my area. Around here there aren't many people riding above 3rd level but on Saturday I watched two riders that were competing at Prix St. George, one at 4th, and one that was training Grand Prix movements on her baby horse that still isn't showing at that level. She did a couple of PERFECT one tempis and I got to watch as they introduced canter pirouettes, and worked on getting better piaffe and passage.

Ignore my inability to get a good canter picture, this pair was AMAZING!

H was the last ride of the day on her pony and it was really great because they worked on stuff that I can (for the most part) do even if we're not as good or consistent at it yet. They focused a lot on straightness since he's wiggly and then did some lateral work and ended with counter canter. H did a great job and it was great to be able to learn from Janet while watching someone riding at a similar level to me :)

Hungry pony after a great ride :)

I'd worn my riding clothes and went out to ride my pony directly from the clinic, after stopping for my favorite Starbucks drink (which I got to use my free drink stars for!) and stopping at Chipotle for dinner.

I got to the barn and the weather was so perfect that I decided to ride outside. I've been using the extra oomf from riding outside to really work on canter since Katai doesn't keep trying to quit on me. I really focused on maintaining the rhythm in the canter and getting it slowed down while maintaining the jump and longer stride length. I also did my 5-10 minutes of sitting trot and started to feel like I was actually getting somewhere. After another little walk break I did some walk/canter and canter/trot/canter transitions. She did so well! She was more hot about the walk/canter on Saturday and was launching more. I'm curious to check with Jane to see if it's good launching (powerful and engaged) or if she's launching so that she doesn't have to step under and carry herself up into the transition. As it was, since I didn't know if it was good or bad I just giggled and carried on. The canter/trot/canters across the diagonal were beautiful as well! She did fewer trot steps and maintained her rhythm better. Plus we got the correct lead every time!

These gifs aren't from Saturday and she's been getting better and better outside so I'll need to get some new footage soon but I realized that I'd never shared these.

The trot is getting so much bigger and more uphill! (I was pushing her sideways in the second one trying to get her off my left leg) 

Since she did harder work and spent a lot more time in canter along with needing to work harder with the uneven terrain I kept it shorter so our total ride was more like 35 minutes than 45 but that was still an improvement so I'll take it!

Slowly but surely getting more strength at the canter :)

It was an amazing, relaxing, but productive horse focused day :)