And the trees are thrashing thrustily
And the leaves are rustling gustily
So it's rather safe to say
That it seems that it may turn out to be
It feels that it will undoubtedly
It looks like a rather blustery day, today
The theme for this weekend has been wind.
I went up to King Oak on Sunday to cheer everyone on. The wind was gusting and it was mighty cold, but it was fun to be at an event! I caught up with Stephie, Nancy, Nikki, Jen and Beth, which was great. I also got to watch SITKA show jump and start XC. Sitka was the mare that I competed in Florida, and she was her usual amazing, goofy self.
That was Sitka and I at the Florida Horse Park.. good times!
While King Oak really made me want to get out and event, I'm content with baby steps for now. Today was another wickedly windy and chilly day, and Dee had the weekend off, but she was a star! She had tons of distractions to deal with and just trucked on like a champ. Roxy screaming at us from the paddock? Who cares!? Pete driving around on the tractor? Whatever! Wind making sand tornados in the ring? Psh, they're no match for us!
She was SUPER stretching to the right (nose almost on the ground type of stretching) and she felt balanced and forward the whole time. Left she only gave me a few of those super stretches, but was still fairly long, low and balanced most of the time. She was also a wee bit lazy today, which was a shock, since the weather really would have given her an excuse to be a goof. I like being able to kick at her a little bit, and today I was REALLY able to kick at her a little. The best part was that she responded just right by giving me more POWER, not more SPEED. I know that some of our work was a little too lacking in forwardness, but Stephie had always told me that with the trackies, it's easier to speed them up than to slow them down. I mean, they already KNOW how to go fast. She also once again picked up both leads on the first try. The left lead was a little more steady (held it around the 20m circle!) than it was on friday, and going right, I was able to half-halt and get a much nicer canter for a few strides on the circle. She responded perfectly and was light, forward, balanced and even a little bit round for about 5 strides. Yay! She's actually got a pretty nice canter, and my worries about it being naturally a little strung out and lopey and starting to dissolve. She's clearly going to be able to collect and come up in front - I got that little sneak peak of it today. The best part of that sneak peak? It means she's getting stronger! After our huge canter success, she was perfectly happy to go back to some stretchy trot, at which point I quit for the day. I'm looking forward to out ride tomorrow, and it it's not too windy, I may try to get some video.
Thursday we're trucking over to Steph's, so if I don't get video tomorrow, I'll hopefully be able to convince steph to take some video during our lessons. I'm really going to need to get cracking on the video for my advanced horsemanship class!
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