Got home from work and hustled out to saddle Clancy. Fortunately she was standing close to the gate so I didn't have to wade through mud to get her out.
She still has a little issue about being saddled; when I put the saddle pad on her, she bites the hitching rail- I'm sure it has to do with her previous life and saddle fit or some other issue related to saddling. I just take my time, bring her head around and give her a rub, then take my time saddling; I back her away a step from the rail, and if she grabs it again, just bring her attention back to me and let her know there's nothing to worry about or get upset about. I really take my time cinching her. I try to make saddling a pleasant thing for her.
We started off in the round pen with some ground exercises, and because she was pretty fresh after being cooped up for over a week in a muddy pen, I sent her around before getting on.
I'm happy to say she stood still for me to get on, and that opening the gate with her is much improved. Still need to work on sidepassing to the gate once we have gone through so I can close it- so I took her to the L that I made of poles to do a little work on that.
See how nice and neat it is..... well not for long! I think every pole got rolled! Oh well, I know what I have to work on now. We have good shoulder and hip yields now, but I have to put it all together now for the sidepass.
I did one exercise that's really fun; take the rein out to the side and get in time with the reaching front foot, then bring your elbow close to your hip and use leg on the same side to hip yield, and do a series of shoulder over/hip over; it's fun and really makes you work to get your timing perfect. You can do it like you do in ground work where you ask for a hip over then sweep the front across and change direction and ask again, or you can do it so that you are asking for the same side all the time (when you're riding)- shoulder to the right, hip left, shoulder right, hip left etc. then switch directions and do the other side.
We also took advantage of the puddles in the yard to make sure she would go through them; of course, she did.
Sure felt good to get back in the saddle again, even for a short time.
Another thing that brightened up my day is the fact that some of my flower baskets are still alive even after all that cold weather and hard frost we had. It's been raining for quite a while and the frost has gone out of the ground; back to mud! But look what I found.....
Took this photo looking south; that bald area on the mountain that is in line with the fence line is where the forest fire took out all the trees last summer. That is really close to the border, it was the day they shut the border down because of the fire.
6 comments:
Sad about the trees. I'm sure it will take a long time for that area to recover. Clancy looks pretty in her winter woollies.
I saw you little violet on FB and thought I should go see if I had any as the weather has been unseasonably warm.....this morning we're white so I guess I missed the opportunity 😕
She's a pretty mare. It must have felt good to be out with her again. That "L" is probably harder than it looks.
We got that rain, too. It flooded a couple of our stalls and really made a mess of things. I had to haul to a lesson on one of those days and I was soaking wet by the time I made it into the arena. But it has been unseasonably warm.
Nice to get back riding again, I been pretty slack out here lately and now its white out gonna have to start hauling again I think.
Have you considered doing a liver cleanse on her? Voodoo tends to be a teeny bit cinchy, not bad he just prefers to have it eased up a bit at a time instead of in one big yank (which works for me, I find the one big yank "rude"). He got a bit worse though last fall and I did a liver cleanse (used the Alpha Omega stuff) and he was much better after that.
What a pretty little Viola, they like the cool weather! Your view is wonderful:)
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