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Apr. 16th, 2008 07:51 amThis spring is kinda pissing me off. It's often been cold and snowy, when it's not cold, it's windy, and then yesterday it was like HOT and WINDY. My house was 78 degrees at 10:30 last night!!!
I went out to ride and it was windy. I thought, "Eh, might have to ride a test in the wind, we'll ride outside." Led Trudi past a lightly flapping tarp which she ignored (yay), groomed her, tacked her up, took her outside to the arena. She was a little looky but not bad, and I climbed on and she was like "Ok, we're going to work, I guess I don't care about the wind."
Till this HUGE wind came along and raised this massive cloud of dust. We could see it coming from the far end of the arena and there was nothing to do but brace ourselves- it was so big it stretched the entire width of the arena, and so dense we could hardly see through it. Trudi, bless her heart, stood there and trembled but didn't move as we got nailed with stinging bits of dirt. After the cloud passed I spat out some grit and said "Screw it, it's too windy" and took her inside.
Inside we could still hear the wind and a bit of bailing twine twisted softly in the breeze at a crack in the door. A shaft of sunlight bisected the arena, and Trudi did a good job of ignoring all this shortly after we got going. I tried to keep things interesting for her and used more laterals and transitions in our warm up (dummy, I don't know why it never occurred to me that these things are good for warming up, they don't necessarily require a warmup on their own...). She was energetic and a little tense, but very responsive and really not bad. I was having problems with my seat (of course) and not sitting well. I did some work without stirrups till my legs were dead, but I still didn't feel like it helped much. When I picked up the stirrups again they felt very short, but again, I didn't feel like I was sitting better. I noticed Trudi not bending very well to the left- she seemed like she wouldn't go into the outside rein, and I realized she was kind of leaning against my inside leg and I was probably not sitting to the inside enough. I tried to work on NOT bringing my hands into my lap, and on keeping her forward even when it's too quick and/or she's not through, but I haven't really mastered getting her back on the bit all the time with my hands as forward as they should be. Meh. Overall, really proud of my horsie, pretty annoyed with me. And hot? I was wearing a long sleeved T-shirt and Trudi still has most of her coat, so we were both very hot and very sweaty...
I went out to ride and it was windy. I thought, "Eh, might have to ride a test in the wind, we'll ride outside." Led Trudi past a lightly flapping tarp which she ignored (yay), groomed her, tacked her up, took her outside to the arena. She was a little looky but not bad, and I climbed on and she was like "Ok, we're going to work, I guess I don't care about the wind."
Till this HUGE wind came along and raised this massive cloud of dust. We could see it coming from the far end of the arena and there was nothing to do but brace ourselves- it was so big it stretched the entire width of the arena, and so dense we could hardly see through it. Trudi, bless her heart, stood there and trembled but didn't move as we got nailed with stinging bits of dirt. After the cloud passed I spat out some grit and said "Screw it, it's too windy" and took her inside.
Inside we could still hear the wind and a bit of bailing twine twisted softly in the breeze at a crack in the door. A shaft of sunlight bisected the arena, and Trudi did a good job of ignoring all this shortly after we got going. I tried to keep things interesting for her and used more laterals and transitions in our warm up (dummy, I don't know why it never occurred to me that these things are good for warming up, they don't necessarily require a warmup on their own...). She was energetic and a little tense, but very responsive and really not bad. I was having problems with my seat (of course) and not sitting well. I did some work without stirrups till my legs were dead, but I still didn't feel like it helped much. When I picked up the stirrups again they felt very short, but again, I didn't feel like I was sitting better. I noticed Trudi not bending very well to the left- she seemed like she wouldn't go into the outside rein, and I realized she was kind of leaning against my inside leg and I was probably not sitting to the inside enough. I tried to work on NOT bringing my hands into my lap, and on keeping her forward even when it's too quick and/or she's not through, but I haven't really mastered getting her back on the bit all the time with my hands as forward as they should be. Meh. Overall, really proud of my horsie, pretty annoyed with me. And hot? I was wearing a long sleeved T-shirt and Trudi still has most of her coat, so we were both very hot and very sweaty...
