I had a headache today but went out to ride anyway: felt clumsy (headaches make me feel clumsy) and awkward but kept at it until I finally had him tacked up and had mounted.\u00a0 Then things improved.\u00a0 Before that, I’d haltered Tigger and done the “walk over raised poles” and other exercises with him, with Rags following along and Not Helping by trying to steal treats out of the treat bag at my waist.\u00a0 Rags saw Tigger getting cookies now and then and he wanted some.\u00a0 So he was pretty cooperative about being tacked up.\u00a0 I wore a new pair of riding tights (also Kerrits, but different model: somewhat warmer, firmer material with more compression and tighter, with two pockets but…no belt loops.)\u00a0 So I stuck three cookies in one of the pockets and left the treat bag behind.<\/p>\n
Rags felt quite energetic and eager to go, but eager meant “at a walk” which is what I wanted.\u00a0\u00a0 We crossed the near meadow, made a little loop up toward the #3 gabion and back to the old ditch crossing, then turned left onto the mowed path there, taking it to the intersection with the west trail up to the dry woods.\u00a0 There we turned onto Center Walk, a mowed path running east\/west between the Dry Woods and the Creek Woods, dividing the West Grass about in half.\u00a0 Rags made no objection to my choices, as both the west Dry Woods trail and Center Walk are trails he’s been on more than once. But my plan was to pick up the Diagonal, a trail that leads northwest (in a series of curves and straights, alongside an old terrace berm) and comes out very close to the entrance to the Tractor Crossing of the (now dry) creek, near the north fenceline.\u00a0\u00a0 I was delighted to find that Rags was now perfectly willing to tackle a trail he’d never been on, heading away from home, a trail he could not see the end of (thanks to the curves)\u00a0 until we were almost there.\u00a0 He kept going at a good strong walk, ears forward.<\/p>\n
At the end of that trail, it runs into a meeting of several others: the E-W trail that follows the line of the fencerow on the field side, the E-W trail that follows the line of the fence, behind the fencerow (and continues east over the Dry Woods hump to the highway or west to the creek and then to the west property line), the N\/S trail\u00a0 that parallels the east side of the Creek Woods, more or less, and the Tractor Crossing short section that leads to all the west-of-creek trails.\u00a0 So there’s a comfortable area of mowed pasture grass for turning around in, which we did, then starting back up the Diagonal to Center Walk, back east on Center Walk across the front of the Dry Woods to the East Dry-Woods trail, where we turned south again, coming back into the Near Meadow.\u00a0 It was a lovely ride, with Rags cooperative *most* of the way and giving me a lovely feel.\u00a0 Clear sky, cool air, very slight breeze, bright sun, and just a perfect day to be outside in a big open space on a horse whose moments of “I don’t wanna” are mild\u00a0 and well separated from each other.\u00a0\u00a0 Mostly it was a ride full of joy and gratitude: how very lucky I am, at my age and after the injuries I’ve had, to be riding comfortably\u00a0 and confidently out in a big field on such a perfect day.\u00a0 To see the little birds flit out of the grass and into the nearest bush or tree…and the horse not even think about spooking…to feel that confident, forward walk under me.\u00a0\u00a0 To hear the slight breeze in the dry grass.\u00a0 To look around, seeing nothing but natural beauty from me to each line of trees.<\/p>\n
Getting off him was harder than it has been since I started using the portable stall rail, because once I had my hand on the top rail and set a foot on one of the others, he swung his hindquarters away too fast for me to get off like that.\u00a0 So I got off while he was almost at right angles to the portable stall, and did manage to get my right leg all the way over the saddle, but having to brace hard on the saddle with both arms, and keep my left foot in the stirrup and knee locked to get enough height for the right leg to clear.\u00a0\u00a0 But still…successful.\u00a0\u00a0 All R- had to do was hold the lead and keep him more or less still.\u00a0\u00a0 I pulled something in my hip that probably needed pulling and hurt when I was first walking after, but that will improve.\u00a0 Both mounting and dismounting are working *slightly* better…just need to keep after it.\u00a0\u00a0 For safety, when I’m riding out alone (R- on the place but not necessarily outside)\u00a0 I need to be able to get on from the ground and get off to the ground without assistance.<\/p>\n
Yes, of course, he’s not “perfect” yet.\u00a0\u00a0 Nor am I, as a rider.\u00a0 We do need to work on some things, and I’m sure he thinks *I* need to work on some things.\u00a0\u00a0 He needs a quicker and more stable “whoa.”\u00a0 He needs to move his hindquarter when I signal with one leg…the direction I need for whatever I’m doing.\u00a0\u00a0 He needs to “stand” on command (not just stop from movement, but square up his legs and hold still while someone mounts, picks up a leg, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 He needs to learn how to rotate on either forehand or hindquarters precisely,\u00a0 so we can proceed to handling gates as well as standing close enough to the stall or the barn lot fence for me (or a friend) to use it for help mounting or dismounting, and do more interesting things that require precision in movement.\u00a0\u00a0 We need to work on the early stages of dressage, not because he’s ever going to be a dressage horse, but because some of those exercises help any horse stay in balance and carry weight in a healthier way.\u00a0\u00a0 A horse that moves in balance under a rider is safer for itself and for the rider.<\/p>\n
I need to get stronger and quicker at mounting and dismounting…and be able to do it from the ground.\u00a0\u00a0 I need to re-develop accurate, precise, independent aids, to help him learn what they mean.\u00a0 But these gaps in his training (common in a green horse) make him more interesting to work with than a perfectly finished horse with machine-like responses.\u00a0\u00a0 I need more strength, especially core strength, and more flexibility.\u00a0\u00a0 And I need to lose another 15-20 pounds of fat (somewhere in there, replacing some of it with muscle in the right places.)<\/p>\n
I check his back after every ride (palpating the muscles on either side of his spine from withers to and beyond his sacro-iliac joint, and then down his rump) and so far he shows no soreness after the rides…he came to me with a pristine “young horse” back and I want to keep it healthy.\u00a0 Today he was *just* beginning to sweat under the saddle when we came in after something I think was\u00a0 between 3\/4 and 1 mile.\u00a0\u00a0 No discernible soreness in his back.\u00a0 His coat, though very dusty (thick winter pelt, is what he has)\u00a0 even after brushing, is soft and glossy in the sun.\u00a0\u00a0 He picked up his feed pan (rubber) and sort of waved it at me….”See, human?\u00a0 It’s empty.\u00a0 I licked it clean.\u00a0\u00a0 Put something in it.”\u00a0\u00a0 I said ” You’ll have to wait until suppertime.”\u00a0 This did not please him, and never mind how many cookies he’d had at the end of the ride.<\/p>\n
But my headache was getting worse with the bright sunlight, so I went in, took an Excedrin, drank a very rare Coke (extra caffeine can shorten the time before the Excedrin works) and lay down with the sleeve of a flannel shirt on my eyes.\u00a0 Thirty minutes later I felt much better…good enough to go back out and feed them at their usual time.\u00a0 They both tore into their sloppy wet pellets with vigor.\u00a0 I filled the low water tub and carried out “supper hay”. \u00a0\u00a0 Because the hay nets, in spite of Rags working on first one then the other off and on today, aren’t empty, and it’s not supposed to freeze tonight, they’ll get night hay in flakes on the ground, not 3-4 flakes crammed into hay nets.\u00a0 The headache wasn’t completely gone but also not intrusive.\u00a0 R- made biscuits (distantly related to scones, for the UK contingent, but lighter and more fragile) to go with the big soup.\u00a0\u00a0 Yum.\u00a0 Now it’s getting on toward time to put out the night hay, so before then I’m going to leave this and do something else.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a headache today but went out to ride anyway: felt clumsy (headaches make me feel clumsy) and awkward but kept at it until I finally had him tacked up and had mounted.\u00a0 Then things improved.\u00a0 Before that, I’d haltered Tigger and done the “walk over raised poles” and other exercises with him, with 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-1098","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\/1098"}],"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=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}