Tuesday, February 12, 2013

A Pretty Nice Night...

What James looked like before we pulled
his mane. The Equine Cousin It.
I love Tuesday nights at the barn.  It's quiet, just the Boy and me and maybe one or two other people.  Usually the others are riding while we groom, so often it's just Noah and I in the indoor.  Noah has his plan, I have mine, and we are perfectly happy to ride our plans with only occasional comments to each other.

Tonight we both worked on one of the no stirrups exercises from Kate Benson's article in the latest issue of Practical Horseman.  After all, if you lose a stirrup it's a pretty good thing to be able to pick it up without losing your balance or yanking on your horse's mouth.  So we worked at dropping and then picking them up, first at the walk and then a teensy bit at the trot.  Let me say this about that: Easier said than done.  My ankles are cement blocks, so being able to just raise my toes and pick up my stirrup is about as easy as, well, flying.  Without an airplane.

After my no stirrup fun I concentrated on my two point, relaxing through my knees and sinking into my  heels.  My goal was to work on getting my ankles to act as shock absorbers and using my legs more to tell Sug where to go.  I read somewhere (or heard somewhere) that you should be able to do everything in the two point that you can do in a full seat, so I've been practicing.  This, too, is harder than you might think.  Trust me.  I find myself trying to keep my balance, and then I shift my legs to ask her to circle and Whoops!  There goes the balance and I've got a mouth full of mane.  I'm getting a bit better. I've noticed that as I do more of this, I find my legs work more independently of each other and my other parts.  For example, before as I'd come around a turn to a fence my trainer would always tell me to add more outside leg.  I thought I was using plenty of leg before, but I can tell the difference now, and my trainer doesn't tell to add outside leg as often.

Mmmm. Yummy.
We finished up popping over some crossrails to work on rhythm (good grief, when does one ever get rhythm???) and added some transitions and circles in between crossrails to keep her focused on me and my aids instead of getting all fired up about jumping. 

After our ride I showed Noah how to pull James' mane, which James was not thrilled about.  However, I found he handled like a big boy as long as we fed him the occasional peppermint and sang James Taylor's Sweet Baby James to him.  We topped the evening off with a stop at Cold Stone Creamery for a Hot For Cookie and then watched some of the Westminster Dog Show.

Not a bad night, right?

7 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good night to me! Do you ever sing or listen to music while you ride? I always have good luck with that trying to match my strides to the music wether it's at the walk, trot, or canter. I listen to every kind of music there is so it's really good practice pushing forward and bringing the horses back. And then add in some cross-rails! If that makes sense. :)

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    1. Madeline - I do sing while I ride! At least, sometimes, while I can breathe! LOL Usually silly stuff, like "She's a good horse, I love my horse, what a nice trot..." I know, I'm insane. I do like having music on while I ride. The ladies who rode with me last night had country music on, and I found myself enjoying riding to that very much. I actually have a playlist on my iPod of Sugar Songs, songs that remind me of her or her rhythm. I was thinking about doing a post on that, so now, clearly I have to!

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  2. Horses, ice cream, and dog shows. What could top that?

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    1. Savvymom- I know! Although it did occur to me, sadly much later in the evening, that a glass of wine would have been in order...Ah well, there's always tonight! Thanks so much for reading, and commenting!

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  3. Love cold stone is the best! Glad you had a nice time at the barn. :) sounds like you made the best of mane pulling Which is no ones favorite.

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  4. What a great night! You are so fortunate to share "the horse thing" with your kids. In another life, I would *love* to have given my son the equestrian opportunity. I think he would be a terrific rider! My daughter thinks they're beautiful but has always been a bit too intimidated to really want to ride.

    Good for you on the no-stirrups work, that's brutal but oh-so-good beneficial...

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  5. Thanks, guys! Cold Stone IS the best, and yes, I am so blessed to be able to do the horse thing, period, but even more so to be able to do it with my kids. Hopefully this will be a good thing when they are both teenagers! As for no stirrups - in a word, OUCH!

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