Week 1 | 2024 Ride Reports

As the calendar flips over to 2024, my riding goals are very clear:

Enjoy every moment with Elf – whether its on the ground or in the saddle.

1.1.24

For the years that Elf has been in my life, I’ve made a point to spend either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day at the barn. There is just something about making sure that the transition includes this relationship that is so important to me.

This year – I was at the barn for both since Elf is dealing with a spider bite turned abscess turned summer sore (in the middle of winter). It is slowly healing, but it means that i’m out at the barn pretty much every day to ensure it is clean and wrapped.

On New Year’s Day, I was in a bit of a funky mood. It was my last day of PTO after 3 weeks off work. I had a long to do list of things I’d wanted to knock off my to do list and didn’t get to. My house was a mess and it had me feeling a little out of sorts. I was frustrated about the series of (relatively) minor but relentless frustrations my family has experiences since moving to Florida back in June.

And then I got to barn. The weather was cool and clear. Elf was happy and enjoying the attention. So I threw on a helmet, swung a leg over bareback in my yoga pants and sneakers, and went for a walk.

I don’t often ride Elf bareback. He was a very mobile back that tends to throw me around a bit and that little bit of reactivity that he still has at 20 makes me glad for stirrups. But, there is just something about it that reconnects me to the kid that wanted nothing more than the feel of a warm neck. It wasn’t a productive ride – we didn’t work on anything and he almost spun me off onto the sand when someone’s dog barked outside the arena.

But it was exactly the quiet moment of connect that I needed to start the year.

1.3.24

In my first lesson of 2024, we tackled lateral work. Elf was quite forward today and that let us work a bit more on actual movements, instead of having to just focus on keeping him in front of the saddle. My trainer has been working with me for the last few months on very, very correct basics as we’ve worked to put muscle back on him the right way while addressing some holes in my position and Elf’s skills.

Today, we started to dial in lateral work. We’ve used leg yields here and there to keep him in front of the leg and engage his brain, but at that point we were just looking for a general effort in the right direction rather than concentrating on the form of the yield itself.

The first exercise was simply a leg yield from centerline to the rail. It was much easier for Elf going to the right and leg yielding to the right. It took very aids, mostly a simple push of weight into the outside stirrup and slight opening of my right wrist. To the left, there was a big of tension and he struggled a bit to maintain a steady forward momentum. I made a mental to include very shallow leg yields that emphasize the forward more than the sideways in my warm ups for a bit.

Building from there, we did a leg yield to half pass exercise. We started on the rail, did a leg yield from the first letter to X and then a half pass from X to the last letter on the rail with an emphasis on maintaining a consistent bend. It’s been quite a while since we worked on moving the haunches for more than fairly simple straightening, so I was surprised that Elf and I were able to make a respectable effort on our first try. He was a bit more tense to the left, losing rhythm and pace in the transition. He tried to anticipate instead of waiting for the transition to pass going to the right it was quite accessible. We also kept the angle of his lateral work shallow. He’s still building fitness and the goal here is to help him feel as good in his body as possible.

I need to work on being intentional with my hips and maintaining a consistent contact for Elf. When I open my fingers, it makes it difficult for him to work into contact. He reaches and because my fingers are open or my elbows are not engaged through my core and my shoulder blades, there’s no connection and then he tips onto the forehand.

We finished the lesson by doing the leg yield to half pass and then cantering in the corner after completing the half pass , which gave a couple of really lovely transitions. It was more difficult to the right and felt a little bit frantic. But that was also the second direction that we worked on so might have been caused partially by me being a little bit tired and disorganized. Keeping Elf soft and relaxed through the exercise is essential for it being productive for him. I think schooling transitions between lateral movements is very good for his brain in a similar way that serpentines are helpful for getting his balance activated.

On a positive note, he is feeling stronger and we’re seeing less unevenness behind. I do think it is time to inject his hocks – reasonable maintenance for a 20 year old! Overall, it was a very good lesson. It felt productive without being strenuous from a fitness perspective. He stayed relatively even in his breathing, and I was only winded once. A major win when work has kept me tied to my desk more than I’d like!

Weekend

I generally try to get a ride in at least once each weekend, but we had just enough rain and weather that I just couldn’t make it out at a time that worked to ride.