Trot Trot Trot

For those of you who had been enjoying the unexpected sun on monday and tuesday, your welcome. Apparently sun is what happens when I wind up not going to the barn. Today it was rainy.

Fortunately Colonel doesn't mind the rain. I turned him out and I lunged him a little bit before going out into the field. I nearly wimped out and just rode inside. Once outside I nearly wimped out and just rode inside the little arena dealie; but after a couple of passes in each arena I hit the road.

It went really well. At first I felt like I was picking at him all the time about his speed. I would bring him down to just into my comfort zone and then let him go again. As you can guess, he was quickly back up to speed. So, I switched tactics. When we got out of my comfort zone I brought him all the way down to a nice, nearly too slow, speed. Then I let him go. It meant I was on his face for longer, but it let me ride quiet for much longer too. Colonel started getting the idea.

To adjust his speed my strategy was, one, fix the inside rein. Then two, squeeze the outside rein. The twist was, when the first sqeeze didn't work, I raised my hand and squeezed again. Every stride that I didn't get what I wanted I raised my hand a little more. Every now and then my hand wound up getting pretty high, but I always got my way.

It was a pretty jarring trot at some times. I could feel the wrong muscles tensing up, which brought my seat backwards in the saddle. Poor Colonel probably didn't appreciate me coming down on the cantle of the saddle, but we worked on that. I did get to the point where I could keep my body fairly relaxed despite the situation. I was pleased about that.

We wound up trotting about 2.5 miles. We went around the field twice each direction. Sometimes we walked the side towards the barn, (but not always! Whoohoo.)

Thinking about it later I realized that although Colonel had been resistant to my aids a lot of the time, he never stuck his head down to pull. I could have a light contact on him with no rebellion on his part. The more time I could spend riding quietly without correcting him, the better he was for the following corrections. I think I'm liking this plan.

I also got Papillon out. She was a little off, I assume from having been shod that morning. We worked on trotting calm and round. That went pretty well too. I worked on relaxing my damn shoulders. I hate riding around and then noticing that my shoulders are sore. They really needn't be doing anything, but, so it goes. I'm working on it.

Hopefully the weather will improve, the ground will get drier and Star and I will be back to tearing around the field. Maybe Colonel and will get to start cantering the field too. Time will tell.