Tuesday Two

What a Beautiful Day!

The promised heavy storm did not hit here although other parts of New Jersey were hit with high winds and heavy rain. What did "hit" was a cool front bringing in some delicious autumn weather.

After I fed the Boys in the morning, I spent some time poo picking the arena.

Then I came in, had breakfast, did a few little chores and eventually headed to the eye doctor to pick up my new contact lenses.

Back home again, I headed out to the barn to actually ride!

I saddled Tucker first. Three false starts later--on then off to move a rail out of the arena path, on then off again to make sure Toby didn't get into the arena when he knocked down a fence rail, on then and finally off on the ride--I started a bit of work.

Nothing too fancy as Tucker is not really in shape to be a truly proper dressage horse.  We did some trotting and cantering to warm up.  He tends to warm up better if I canter a little to get the trot going--very TB.  Then I focused a little on lateral work.  I started off with some leg yield and then worked on transforming that into half pass.

Tucker is not the most flexible horse I've owned and his short back makes it a little harder to get him to bend through his body.  I broke it all down into small steps starting at the walk and by the end of by about five minutes of schooling, he gave me the best half pass to the left at the trot that he's ever done.

We finished up with some canter lead changes through the trot on a figure eight, and then some trot work really on the bit before finishing up to cool him off at the walk.

Once done with Tuck, I saddled up Chance.  We worked just about five-ten minutes in the arena before heading out on the trail.  He gave me some nice, round stretchy trot and, in the canter, some more round work.  The transitions down were not so good, but again, it's something to work on.  I've not concentrated on his schooling as we all know, so I am really quite pleased that he seems to be progressing despite the minimal education.

Then we went out on a nice trail ride along the field and through the woods via the middle road. Good thing I had decided not to to all the way out to the back as there were a bunch of trucks parked along the cornfield. I'm not sure what was going on, but I suspect it was the power company tending to the high tension lines. Could have been something else, but Chance's reaction to seeing the trucks made it clear he didn't particularly want to investigate.

Back home, it was carrots for everyone.

Lovely day, lovely horses and some good riding.