Sunday, January 5, 2014

It was 35 degrees today but no wind so it was not too cold to ride.  I know that this next week will be touch and go for me as far as time, with a game tomorrow, school starting back Tuesday, and our home basketball tournament on Thurs, Fri, and Sat.  I'm going to try to sneak some time during my conference period but will have to see how it all works out.  Anyway, though it was a bit chilly, I needed to ride while I knew I could.

I rode Bliss out again today.  I'm not sure if it was the cool weather or my letting her choose her pace yesterday, but she was a bit hot today.  We started at a walk to warm up a bit, then I asked her for a trot.  From the get-go she wanted to move from trot to lope.  I pulled her into a one-rein stop when she sped up to lope, let her sit, and then asked for her to walk off.  She wanted to trot instead of walk, lope instead of trot.  We did a few hundred one rein stops (it felt like) and lots of lateral flexion while we were stopped.

She did eventually chill out and trot nicely, however, when I finally asked her to lope off she charged away.  I changed tactics and decided to let her blow the steam off and guided her around the turns between fields.  She flew around for quite a while.  When I could feel that she was wanting to slow to a trot I pushed her on a little further in the lope until it was my idea to slow to a walk.  By this time both she and I were puffing quite a bit.

We walked for a while to catch our breath and then turned towards home.  I asked for walk-trot transitions on the way home which she gave nicely, not wanting to lope off from the trot anymore.  We cooled down at a walk for about 20 minutes.

Of course I question whether I should have continued with the one-rein stops when she was chargey at the lope or if I did right by letting her go but then pushing her past the point that she wanted to stop.  I guess I'll find out when I ride her out next. . . .





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