Two Down

Ugh, summertime colds are the worst. The cold plus allergies plus the heat is just a terrible combination.

So, where we left off.

I had a fun short little trail ride with some friends on Wednesday. It was a good workout for all horses involved, surprisingly Misty was the most fit of the three (scratch that, my friend's wiener dog was the most fit even with those short little legs!), though that didn't mean she wasn't huffing and puffing by the top of the hill. It was the first sunny day we've had since I finished my classes so it was the perfect day for a trail ride.

Two big bays and a little paint horse

Thursday I showed up to the barn and found Jetta with a big old puffy eye. Looks like she gave it a good scrape/whack on something. Poor baby. She looked so miserable with it all swollen. I still lunged her, but decided not to ride and just rode Misty. Luckily that worked out because the whole allergies/cold thing wasn't working out all that great for me in terms of breathing.

Poor baby. The swelling is all down by now, but it sure looked awful the first two days.

I didn't have as good a ride on Misty as I did on Monday. Once she warmed up and started taking contact things were good, but she was super sticky about her right lead canter transition, plus I was just asking for harder things in general, so it wasn't an amazing ride.

Trying to get her ready for first level. I thought we'd be ready for Misty to show at First level and Jetta to show at Second level by the time this July dressage show rolled around, but... It's in 23 days and that just feels awfully close to me. I don't want to have a bad ride at a show, so we may stick with Training, but I think she could be ready for it in time... Jetta on the other hand... We could do Second 1 with the counter canter serpentine which is rough or we could do Second 2 with travers which is also not 100%. Not sure if we're quite ready for that either.

Anyways, with Misty we did some 10 meter half circles. Interestingly while the left is her better direction in general, she has a harder time doing a 10 meter circle to the left, but no problem to the right. Hmmm... Lengthenings are still about 50/50 but I think they're fairly acceptable at this point. Leg yields... She does them well, but depending on the day, she wants you to think either that they're no big deal or that they're a huge deal and SO HARD. Poor, poor pony. Dressage is the worst. Everything else is looking pretty good though. I've definitely gotten harder on her about being in front of my leg. I don't ride with spurs at home only at shows, because I don't want her to get dull to them and usually she's fine, but even though she responds perfectly on cue when I ask for upward transitions, I've noticed that she's just the tiniest bit behind my leg and that gets amplified when we go to shows, so I've definitely cracked down on that.

Overall, it was a productive ride, just not the prettiest.

Misty appreciates the newly cleaned mirrors in the arena.

Today was going to be trail ride day, but my cold's gotten the better of me so it was just stall cleaning and letting the ponies romp around in the round pen (their favorite activity). Hopefully the fields at the barn will be hayed soon and they can get some actual turnout!