In Twenty Meters, Turn Left ... Recalculating.

You know how your GPS spells out instructions for your route and it never ceases to fail at some point along the way? Somehow, somewhere, you will miss a turn or hell, go completely off course and end up driving in circles.

This is how I have been feeling about my rides lately and no matter how much I hate deviating from my precisely laid out game plan, I accept it as part of A) riding horses, where no things actually follow the book and B) only to accentuate part A – riding baby horses.

Today, I had planned on schooling a couple cross rails,  making them a bit more solid looking than I had before and removing both take off/landing and trot in poles. Reason being I have been finding that Solo concentrates so much on where his feet are falling over the poles (something we have been working on often), that he doesn’t really know what to do over the little jump. Mind you the size of the fence doesn’t really warrant ‘jumping’ but he does have to be a bit more conscious about where his feet are. Yes, I admit I would like him to touch a couple times to learn and hey it is totally normally for this age and having only seen maybe half a dozen fences in his entire life thus far but riding alone, getting off and on to reset the poles is not very convenient. So, my theory is to roll the take-off and landing pole into the fence to give ground lines and make it appear more ‘jump’ worthy rather than merely raised trot poles. On the plus side, the lack of poles to boggle his still baby brain will give him more time to look and think about the question.

Anyhow, long explanation short, we had to recalculate our route after missing the exit on account for having a super duper floaty and stretchy pony this day.

Solo’s balance is all over the place. I never really ride the same horse as the day before yet so you have to make the most out of the horse you’ve got that day. #babyhorseworldproblems.

I am honestly not sure what triggered ‘this horse’ to come forth but today after a short warm up Solo was really forward, lifting his back and floating along. It could be from his recent pedicure Friday (the 1^st), or maybe because the mud is beginning to dry … hell maybe it was the fresh round bale. Either way I opted to make use of this version of horse and play with it.

All in all, we played basic w/t/c, transitions and some odds and ends of lateral work. Nothing fascinating but progressive all the same and I am betting it will make it all the better for our next ride to have a nice relaxed and stretched out pony.

Next stop, crossrail crossing.