The Dawning of Stirrup Ditch December

"Storms make oaks take roots."

 

Rider; Out of order until further notice...

Yesterday's ride I set up randomly scattered poles to work on both my and Pal's eye. We both seem to only be able to find THE spot on a standard 12' stride length and indoors the comfortable stride length sags to roughly 10' and it is throwing us off something serious.

Our warm up went great. Pal was feeling much more ambitious today and seemed to want to work.
So I decided to work on our three L's. Longer, lower, lighter.

Clearly in the mood, Pal was responsive to my leg, she was working behind, stretching over and down and she stayed light up front all by herself. It was lovely.
Canter poles posed little problem, she was getting right to the base and popping over. I could even feel her adjusting slightly and locking on as she carefully calculated her spot. Miss Independent!

I had also set a low-wide oxer with a diagonal pole across the top in the center of the ring to work on my direction aids and Pal's listening skills. Not to mention my wee little habits...of which I have now fully accepted, my never failing twist to the left and my die hard long crest release.
Apparently, I have ridden too many greenies so this release is now set on default. Now, that Pal can start to accept a bit of contact over fences without getting tense, I am having a hard time biting the bullet and dropping it. Ugh.

So long story short, we trotted over the oxer a few times with huge success. You would never know we had trot fence issues before....
Then proceeded to gather up our canter, minor adjustments and ok, ready. We head to the fence, I stay centered and out of the tack. I half halt a few times on approach because I can feel she is seeing the distance with a 12' brain but giving a 10' step. We get a little closer to the base than I want but she manages and makes a clean but less than stellar jump. I circle around the jump the next time around to balance and get her to take a look at the jump while we pass by it. Next is her turn, I force myself to stop micro managing. *Repeat* Set and forget. Let her make a mistake and learn.

We come around again, one half halt is all I allow. I sit a little deeper to help balance but let her take it. She decides long and we land in a bit of a heap. Ok. No problem. She tried something different from last time. Good girl.

I bring her back, give her a break, then do a few halt-canter transitions to help encourage sit. Over the poles to re-center ourselves and then head back to the oxer. I allow a little more curvy corner this time to prevent any changes in the stride with the tight corners. Pal saw a spot and took it, she added maybe a bit too much power and decided to turn me off as I opened my body left, she took right. I lost one stirrup with the 'body roll' type motion and the inertia rolled my weight back left .. Left ankle decides to add it's two cents, Pop! Umm... owww...

I suck it up, walked it off a bit and pick up my stirrups again. Patted Pal since she had a case of the jiggies. Poor gal panics when I lose my balance even slightly.
Despite the shooting pain I was determined to end on a good note. I reset the canter but this time I said to Pal, we are riding forward to this jump ie 12' inside, your job is to keep your balance.....NAILED IT!


Ok. So I did not accomplish compressing the stride over fences today but with her confidence back up, we finished. Bound to tackle compression another day.

At that point. I had to get off. My ankle was killing me. Time to walk it off on two legs.
I could tell Pal was still a little wound from making her directional error, so I untacked and let her loose to blow some steam in good footing. Last thing I want is a tense horse stalled all night.

I was pretty shocked at how 'beany' she was but it was seriously fun to watch, here are some video stills for yours and my visual pleasure.
Oh brother... I just cannot help my inner dialogue from adding song lyrics to each caption.



Oh, you can watch me trot if you want to, want to...

I bet you want me back now don't you, don't you...



La de-da de-da...





Ima buck...

Ima CRAZZZYYY......

Uck... Don't look at me...



I'm so fast! Zoom zoom ....

Levade! Wait... no... too hard.




Ok. I am done. You ready to go?

 









 

All in all, while my dedicated soul refuses to take time off riding so it turns out December is now officially Stirrup Ditch December. I am sure we are all going to be wishing my ankle heals quickly when I show off my serious no stirrup skilllzz...Ha.