She's getting some bute and I have someone who does body work coming out to see her on Tuesday. I'm going to see what she thinks - if it's conditioning or if this is it. If this is as much as Lily will be able to manage.
If the latter is the case, that has some implications, most of which I'm going to shelf thinking of at this point.
Today, after checking that she was sound at the walk, we went for a short ride, stretching our comfort zone for riding alone. (Well, HER comfort zone, anyway.) We got just a ways further than we have before when all alone, mostly because I didn't want to push it. I rode in a bareback pad to ease the weight a bit.
When we came back to soft ground we did a very short trot. She was sound at a short trot counter clockwise, but bad clockwise.
We could, I suppose, always go left. Lord knows it's my tendency anyway.
My lesson from Lily today was about my knee. Since we are only riding in a halter, I'm working on more leg and body cues. I found that slightly rotating my left knee into her (and I do mean slightly) and she would turn right. I didn't even need to cue with my foot or calf.
Same with the right, although not as good as the left.
So today's lesson is it takes even less than you can imagine.
Then it was time for lunch.
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| Note: two flowers in the halter, as is our new tradition... |
A nice day. We will see what the body work produces.
11 comments:
The softer the better. Well done.
Dan
I hope that you can pinpoint the soundness issue, and that you will be able to keep riding and developing the beautiful relationship with Lily.
Less heading to almost nothing . . . I'm on that road myself.
Hope miss Lily is able to continue to take you on trail journeys.
I'm so sorry. I'm going through similar with Apache. It's sad because I'm riding other horses every adventurous weekend, when my heart would rather that I could ride my own horse...and I believe my horse feels the same way :(
~Lisa
So today's lesson is it takes even less than you can imagine.
Coro is trying to teach me that, too.
Fingers crossed that her soundness is only a temporary issue and she'll be okay. You and she are having such good times together.
Like your lesson for today. Dusty, Blue and myself are always striving for this scenario.
I've been following your blog for a year or so ... I live in Dallas and I have a couple of horses. Have you found a place yet?
if you like you can give me a holler when you get up here.
-Anne
I never road with my legs growing up and I think it is one of my favorite things to do now... and keep my hands very quiet. :)
I hope you figure out her lameness issue... it is worrisome. My little QH just got kicked in the leg by my other horse and we have had quite a time. Things will be OK, but it could have turned out real bad. I'm going to post about it soon, now that I know everything is OK.
I hope Lily's shoulder issue is not serious. :(
I have been playing with Frosty like that lately. Moon will move whatever direction I think about and I can even get him to do reining spins. Frosty has a lot of learning to do to catch up to that. But he has Moon beat 10 fold on the 'Whoa'. LOL
I thought I commented on this a while back but I guess it didn't go through.
Hope Lily is okay, she's such a great horse. You both seem to be enjoying your trail rides so much it would be a shame to not be able to.
Good lesson for the day too. In my book less is always more.
She's so pretty. :)
My dressage trainer told me that the thigh and knee are for controlling the shoulders. The calf and heel are for controlling the haunches. You're on the right track!
I hope Lily checks out okay. Please keep us updated.
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