Tuesday’s ride completed the first week of work under saddle for Ragtime.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s now fine with the ride length of 15 minutes.\u00a0 It was a lovely ride (again), this time up the east side of the dry woods,\u00a0 with only one hesitant moment from Rags, when he heard Tigger calling from the barn area.\u00a0 But he went on, ears forward and looking alertly around when I gave him a nudge.\u00a0 I thought he’d like that route…it opens up the view, and was also new to him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We left the mowed path for the burned area, and I rode a loop “down” into it and back up to the trail home.\u00a0 Rags continued willing and brisk until we reached the SE corner of the dry woods, where he wanted to go on “home” and I turned him onto the trail leading west, across the front of the dry woods.\u00a0\u00a0 I was going to turn back about halfway across…just needed to use up another couple of minutes…but he spotted the Fox Pavilion trail he went on about a year ago and turned toward it.\u00a0\u00a0 So we rode up into the increasingly rocky area and got as far as Cactus Flat.\u00a0 There I found an area free of cactus just large enough for him to turn around in and headed him back out of the dry woods, which he was glad to do, and we turned onto the main trail home.\u00a0 When he gets his next hoof trim (about 4 weeks), he’ll be measured for hoof boots on the fresh trim, and once he’s booted I’ll take him back up to Fox Pavilion.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, a few hours later I was attacked by a gut bug, and it persisted off and on until now, so I’m not riding today–I’m sure he won’t mind a day off.\u00a0 He’s definitely lost some weight (which he needed to) but he doesn’t need to go too low, either.\u00a0\u00a0 I mind, but it’s a cloudy, dull day after a foggy dawn, so I mind less than if it were beautiful, sunny, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 I keep reminding myself (because I’m not the most patient person in the world, esp. with myself) that there’s no rush in getting Rags fit, better trained, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve enjoyed riding him this past week; he appears to be willing and reasonably happy to be going out and seeing new stuff.\u00a0 If it takes six weeks to work up to hour-long rides…so what?\u00a0 (Nonetheless, if this miserable digestive tract will please settle down, I’ll be delighted to get on him later this afternoon…)\u00a0 In this next week, if I can ride five times, I’m sure we can get to half hour rides.\u00a0 I’d planned to do the first increase, to 20 minutes, today.\u00a0 Oh, well.<\/p>\n
Things for me to work on while riding: posture (no slumping, no collapsing a hip), position overall, clarity of aids.\u00a0\u00a0 Things for me to work on while not riding: mounting\/dismounting practice, strength of legs and core, flexibility (all over).\u00a0 Things to work on with Rags while not riding: ground handling he’s still not perfect on, grooming, fly spray, tacking up, etc.\u00a0 Things to work on with Rags while riding:\u00a0 flexing at the poll, better halts, quicker response to aids, leg yield, maintaining a regular walk, straightness, lateral flexibility, backing up, standing still\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing dramatic yet, just both of us continuing to learn each other and become smoother partners.\u00a0\u00a0 I won’t put my old western saddle on him until my riding weight plus the saddle’s weight is well within his carrying capacity.\u00a0\u00a0 He’ll stay in the lightweight English saddle until then, and maybe after (depends which he seems to like best.)<\/p>\n
If I can stray far enough from the small tiled room this afternoon, I’m going to move some poles and jump blocks into the north horse lot and set up a defined straight-sided area to do some exercises now and then.\u00a0\u00a0 This makes it easier to clarify, for the horse, the cues for things like leg yield and shoulder-in, and easier for me to tell if we’re achieving those goals.\u00a0 It can’t be a standard dressage setup, but it can be sortakinda like that, even if narrower (because of stuff.)\u00a0\u00a0 When we get to longer riding periods, at least two a week will involve part of the time spent in the “school.”<\/p>\n
Yesterday was really a lot of fun.\u00a0 I haven’t ridden in that part of the land at all for almost 40 years.\u00a0 It’s a big open sloping area, partly terraced.\u00a0 This spring I’m going to seed the part that was burned with a shortgrass mix and see if I can get a more turf-like cover on at least part of it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Hmmm…clouds starting to break up.\u00a0 Stomach-ache still not gone, alas.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday’s ride completed the first week of work under saddle for Ragtime.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s now fine with the ride length of 15 minutes.\u00a0 It was a lovely ride (again), this time up the east side of the dry woods,\u00a0 with only one hesitant moment from Rags, when he heard Tigger calling from the barn area.\u00a0 But Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,16],"tags":[49,17],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-horses","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}