Riding, Riding, Over the Bounding Manes

Well, At Least Over the Sand

Watched the Grand Prix Special this morning live. Saw most of the rides except for the few times my Internet acted up.

Loved the "pink" Russian horse and he did a really nice test. Steffen Peters of the USA put a brilliant ride in on Ravel and I think his score should have been higher. Courtney King rode Mythilus beautifully. She is such an elegant rider. She too scored well. Anky had several "blips" in her test and should, I think, have scored lower. Heike Kemmer put in a nice ride on Bonaparte putting her in third place behind Anky and Isabel Werth in first. Satchmo was a naughty boy in his first piaffe of the test. In the team test, he kicked out in a piaffe in about the same spot. I hope he is not having an "issue" either mental or physical. All in all the tests were a delight to watch.

However! I rode Toby in the arena today after a hack through the very buggy woods, and he scored an 89%, so those Olympic horses have nothing on him. Then Chance put in an 89.5% on a mythical musical freestyle, so I think I own the real gold medal winners. Tuck put in a 90% ride the other day, but he was doing the eventing dressage test, so I can't compare. He was not sound enough today to compete, so we will just have to wait until the WEG rolls around.

OK, OK, so I rode fantasy tests.

Reality was slightly different. Toby was on a long rein just doing a little work after his hack and he was very forward. I tested my seat a little and leaned back a bit the way Anky had in her team test (she rode almost the whole test very horribly leaning back behind the vertical for some reason) and Toby took off. When I sat back up to vertical, he slowed back down. This was all without any kind of rein aid.

I saddled Chance up, not sure he was going to be OK, but once I was on, he felt fine. He was very forward in his trot, but the stiffness on the right rein was back again. This may be related to whatever issue he had with his right hind leg. I didn't fuss with it too much since it does not keep me from putting him where I want him to be. I can certainly muscle it out if I need to but it is not a pleasant feel to the hand.

Chance is still not at the stage where he does not revert to bad habits after a layoff. This is because his training schedule has been too erratic. I'm not really worried about it, because when I do manage to ride him for several days in a row he "fixes" pretty fast. I am glad that I didn't feel any lameness, though because last summer I had to lay him off for well over a month because of whatever was wrong in that hind leg. It may now just be a chronic weakness. He does take both canter leads easily so that is a plus and a good sign it's nothing serious.

Tucker seemed very concerned that he was not being worked. He was about a "2" lame when I trotted him on a circle around me, improved quite a bit over yesterday. But he was very insistent about watching me work both Toby and Chance and kept coming into the barn every time I left a door open behind me. To top it off, he had on his "cute" face and just looked adorable.

I did swim again too, so I am keeping fit.

There is a big tent sale at the saddlery going on and I will be going tomorrow. I don't need anything except some Betadine and maybe flyspray at 20% off, but I am sure I will find some kind of bargain in the tent. In the past I have gotten some really nice jackets for Christmas presents, as well as some Ariats for my cousin. I do need a crownpiece for Tucker's bridle, so I'll look for that.

And they have a drawing for a garden tractor, so that should be fun--it always is.

Olympic Show Jumping for the Team medals starts tomorrow too. I don't mind if I miss some of that. Tuesday, though, is the Grand Prix Freestyle. That will be exciting. Just hope my DSL behaves!!