Week 1 | A Year of Riding
What would happen if I gave myself a year for my priorities? A year where the first thing that went on my calendar every week was my ride? I don’t know, but I’m keeping track of what happens.
Monday
Our first really cool Fall morning served as the perfect start to my year of riding. I’ve learned that my day gets away from me quickly if I’m home, so I headed to the barn immediately after dropping the kid off at school.
The number one priority when Elf isn’t fit is getting our forward back. He tends to get stuck and stiff as his go to reaction if he’s not 100% clear on what I want. The easiest way to get forward is out in the open and our barn happens to have plenty of that! So we started our ride with a hack around the hay field behind our ring. Being out of the ring isn’t Elf’s strong suit, but he’s gotten tremendously better in the last couple of years. We managed a little bit of trot, a nice forward walk and a happy start to the day’s ride!
Back in the arena, my goals were to keep our ride soft and relaxed. My go-to walk, trot, canter routine uses figure eights, 3 loop serpentine and 15m circles. Elf needs his brain kept busy and lots of bending and lateral movement to supple his body. In each gait, I start with a loose rein and let him reach for the contact before I shorten the reins to any kind of impactful length. He needs a least a minute or two of canter before he can settle to trot work.
An unexpected, but remarkably effective, observation I made in today’s ride had to do with my core. In my clinic a few years ago with Melissa Allen, we worked on using my seat and core to set the tempo of Elf’s trot. It’s something I’ve wrestled with since. Today, my core was mildly sore from my early morning Peloton ride – which meant I could really feel when it was engaged. It quickly became crystal clear that my half-halts and lengthening & shortening the stride was allllll in my abs. With that awareness, I could half halt for a more lofty, coiled trot with noticeable sit and then open into a pushing and forward stride. It was a little shaky and inconsistent but had the clearest transitions within the gaits that I’ve ever felt with Elf.
He did get quite sweaty even with a relatively short work in cool weather. I see clipping in our near future.
Tuesday
It was obvious how needed my “year of riding” is when I walked into the barn to my barn manager cheering “two days in a row”!
Warmer but with threatening rain today, Elf was a bit more up today. After a quick mane trip during a drizzle, the rain broke long enough to get in a quick half hour ride. We started again with a hack around the hay field – with a bit more trot and a little canter, which felt like a lot for Elf to mentally handle. It took a solid 15 minutes for him to settle into his work back in the area.
He felt a little bit stiff at first today, but work right out of it. I focused on stretching today, with plenty of soft and forward 20m trot circles. Big figures and soft contact. A favorite way to test his responsiveness is the canter-trot-canter serpentine. We managed both directions reasonably well, despite a little falling into the down transition from the left lead canter (more haunches in needed!).
All in all, I’m incredibly pleased with how Elf is handling this step in work. I, on the other hand, am exhausted!
The Always Changing Plan
My calendar clearly showed my intention to give Elf Wednesday off and ride Thursday and Friday.
But, life. Especially life with husband traveling for the Army & a kid with homework and sports.
Instead, work called on Thursday and the kiddo needed a little extra time on Friday which blew my schedule out of whack. It wasn’t what I had planned for week 1 but I have a feeling much of the coming year will work like that. Life, and it’s demands, will ebb and flow.
That’s ok.
I rode more this week than I have recently, and those rides felt good. I managed to work out consistently, which helps my riding. Things are moving in a positive direction. That feels good.
I’ll take it.
