Week 2 | 2024 Ride Report

A few years ago, I made it a habit to ride every Monday morning. I would do school drop off and head straight to the barn. And one of my strongest memories from that 6 or so months was regularly thinking – this is the perfect way to start the week.

So, I’m experimenting this month with making those Monday morning rides a priority. It means my morning is a bit of juggle, but since we moved to Florida in June, I’ve had a hard time being consistent about my rides outside my weekly lesson. So, instead of making the goal that I’m going ride 3-4 times a week, I’m just focusing on Monday morning. With a Monday ride and my Wednesday lesson, I’m already halfway to my 4x/week goal.

1.8.24

After dropping my son off at school, I made my way to the barn around 8 AM. Elf was in turnout for about an hour before I rode and he was very happy and relaxed this morning.

There was a lesson happening in the arena, so I kept things pretty basic just to stretch and move. The barn is doing some work on the arena, so one short side had the rails down, and the new frame for our arena mirrors had gone up. Elf found this very spooky and was quite tense at that end of the arena for the first part of our ride. It was also chilly this morning, which contributed to a little more “energy” than is typical for him lately. We were able to channel that energy into some very productive trot work.

I also switched his bet from the Boucher to an Eggbutt French link , and it did exactly what I was hoping. The Boucher gives me great lift for his shoulders, but it does create a less consistent connection because there’s enough movement in the bit that I have to be very. very still in my hands and in my shoulder to give him a place to come into the connection. That is very much a work in progress for me right now. I am able to be more still and stable with the Eggbutt instead. It felt like he was able to produce a more active trot because the connection was more consistent and we had less back-and-forth in his balance to establishing the connection.

I included some leg yield work to help with focus because he was a bit spooky at first. It wasn’t the best that we’ve done, but we started with a better first try than we did last Wednesday. It felt like I had more to work with in the lateral work. He was definitely trying and understood what I was asking for, even if at times he was a little too tense to be smooth into an out of the leg yield.

The ride took me a little bit longer than I anticipated. I arrived at the barn about 8:10 AM and left about 945 which cuts into my workday more than I was anticipating. But I didn’t have my first meeting until 11 so it was workable. I did do an hour or so of work before school drop off. It does feel nice though to have had Sunday to take care of things at the house and be able to start my Monday with a ride .

1.10.24

My weekly lesson this week was a damp one. We had quite a storm yesterday, so the ground was quite wet and I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to ride in the arena. I schedule my lessons at 7:45 am so I can take advantage of the work-from-home perk of riding before I sit down at my desk. Riding in the morning also helps with consistency. It’s less likely that school events or unexpected work needs will pop up at 7 am.

While Elf felt pretty responsive today, he had a little bit less forward momentum than we had on Monday. I think this could be because there were a few large puddles in the arena. The footing was quite nice but there was some splashing when we went through the puddles that seemed to slow him down. We lost some of our momentum each time we hit a puddle.

We started with a steady contact and focusing on asking Elf to be more consistent in the contact. The focus was on me maintaining the feel, asking him to stay in front of my leg and moving forward into the contact. I needed to maintain a very steady position with my upper body and my elbows, so that there was something for him to move into, and stayed in the same place. The mental image that helped me was to think of doing a lat pull down with my shoulders in the up portion of my post. That was paired with a thought of a half halt – not a fully executed ask, but just a flutter of the fourth finger on the inside rein.

That exercise, some transitions and changes of direction did a good job of letting Elf find his center of balance in a more connected, carrying-himself frame with fairly minimal intervention by me. Instead, I put myself in the position I wanted him to meet me at. That seems to be a less argumentative way of asking for that connection.

We also did a little bit of bus turns (making a square instead of a circle, with turns that are almost a turn on the haunches with minimal bend through the body) to check that the shoulder was moving and responsive. That is tremendously better than where we were a couple of months ago when that was a little bit of a fight. Elf and I were able to do the exercise well, with very little fuss on the first try. I noted this time, compared to the last time we did that exercise, he maintained the rhythm of his walk much more consistently than he has in the past. That isn’t something that we have really been working on, but it makes sense that with him in front of my leg and carrying himself, it would be easier for him to maintain the rhythm. I think there’s also a strength component to that. So as he’s gotten stronger, he’s better able to hold himself and maintain a pace and a rhythm through exercises that we’re asking him to do.

After the bus turns, we did a more direct turn on the haunches. The turn to the right was better than the turn to the left although they were both a little bit rusty. We’ve focused more on the shoulders than we have the haunches for the last couple months. The next thing that we need to to think about and incorporate into my rides. The turn on the haunches also highlighted that I needed to be more clear and organized about using both leg aids independently.

1.12.24

I had planned to ride on Friday before we headed out for a weekend family trip, but the weather did not cooperate. It was gloomy and wet, so Elf enjoyed a good groom and was tucked into his stall with his alfalfa cube mash and an unexpected day off.