My record for riding in December has been pretty abysmal, so I was pleased to get out for another ride last night. Bareback again, with a wool quarter sheet underneath. We're still on the loosening/fitness plan, if only because I can't string together enough rides to work harder on that.
So: 15 minutes walk, 5 minutes trot, 10 minutes walk, 5 minutes trot, 10 minutes walk last night. All bareback. I felt pretty good about most of it; he had a couple of zoomy moments but nothing he didn't half-halt out of. He relaxed pretty good over his topline about 2/3 of the way through, and though I never got really true long & low work out of him I feel good about what we did.
Unusually for my barn during the winter, last night there were four of us working in the ring! One adult on a lovely tall hunter, and two kids on ponies going zooooooom. Since the trainer takes ~20 horses south for the winter, we're usually less than half full during the winter, and it's the quietest time of the year by far. Not this winter! The adult on the hunter is a local trainer who has brought about six of her clients and horses to the barn for the winter.
She was VERY nice and her horse was just lovely, verrrrrrry hunter type-y (a lot of you guys would've loved her). The kids were nice and pretty darn good at ring etiquette, but wow, did I fall out of the habit of riding with other people! Especially since there were jumps set up and it's not a huge indoor to begin with. Eep.
We made it through just fine, though, and my schedule is starting to open up, so here's to more bareback December rides!
glad it's looking like you'll get more riding in! while busy rings can be annoying, i find that it's easier to motivate myself out when i know there will be ppl around rather than when it's a ghost town. not sure why tho lol
ReplyDeleteGlad you managed a crowded ring, and bare back nonetheless! I miss riding with people, sometimes.
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