Birthday Ride

In keeping with trying to adjust to my new summer schedule, Wednesday I got up bright and early so I could ride Cinna before work. DH and a coworker were smoking like 132982347 pounds of pork for a work function, so we even had an audience! I brought the horses in for breakfast, went back inside to change, and came back out to ride. 

Rockin' our new Ogilvy that Grain Before Groceries was kind enough to sell me!

 

 

 

Despite being the birthday girl, Cinna apparently woke up on the wrong side of her stall (I’m only kind of kidding, since she was turned out all night, but you get the metaphor). It started in the crossties, where she danced back and forth screaming for Jack, her BFF. After we got the screaming under control, I was trying to get her boots on when she came over basically on top of me, so what I was hoping would be a quick tack up turned into a manners lesson where I reminded her that she does in fact know how to stand quietly in the cross ties. Because baby horses, why not?

Very angry giraffe.

 

Soooooo mad about... things.

Our ride was… not great. She was super amped to start, and never really settled in and relaxed. I’ll be the first to admit, with only a few years of riding dressage, and extremely limited instruction, I’m obviously not the best or most educated rider. Without formal instruction, a lot of the reading I do about dressage doesn’t 100% make sense to me – and sometimes even when I’m having an issue, I can’t necessarily articulate what the issue IS. I read a lot of people post/write about their horses being “tight in the back”, but before Wednesday, I’m not sure I’d ever really experienced that in such an in-your-face way. The fun thing about training babies is you never stop learning – right?

Touching the reins. Not touching the reins. No difference. Angry giraffe.

 

So tight and short nose to tail.

 

It was literally like riding a 2x4. I don’t sit her trot right now anyway (because of how young/green she is), but if I had tried on Wednesday, it would have been like riding a jackhammer ripping up a highway. Despite using the bit she’s been most comfortable in in the past, she was angrily chomping for most of the ride. Nothing I did seemed to make a difference, she just didn’t come to play. We did manage to get through W/T/C both directions, although none of last week’s soft adjustable canter was anywhere to be found.

 

 

About as relaxed as she got the entire ride.

I was running out of time before I needed to get ready for work, so I did some work on walk-halt-walk for a while (since it’s definitely a weak point) until she calmed down a bit, which let me end on a good note. I’m not sure if she was uncomfortable because she was in heat (my mares aren’t *super* showy about that so I don’t always know? I also rode without a half pad, because I was using the simplest little Roma one imaginable, and I didn’t think it made a difference – maybe it did? Or maybe she just had an off day? Maybe she needs time to adjust to working early in the morning? God knows I do. DH commented halfway through my ride that I hadn't smiled once -- not sure if that was a byproduct of the time of day or the frustrating ride.

 

I guess the good thing about blogging is I can track rides like this and try to find patterns. It’s hard with her since she’s had such infrequent riding (and I’m also not great about documenting it). At any rate, every ride is a learning experience, even the not-so-great ones. And even the crappy photos tell me things. So I'll share them, even though we were certainly looking far from our best! Hopefully we’ll be able to put in some better work soon!