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.