When it comes together

Riding as an adult amateur means that sometimes, life’s other priorities need to take center stage. But that doesn’t mean that I take time off from my riding goals. Instead, I chase them a little differently. 

I mentioned in my last Ride Report that between work, kid activities and preparing for our October move, there are plenty of weeks that I only get out to the barn on the weekends. It’s been a long time since I had that kind of schedule. From the time my son started pre-school at 3 (because speech therapy wasn’t getting it done), weekdays while he was in school and my husband was at work allowed me time to ride without feeling like it was taking away from my other priorities. I’ve worked so hard over the years to build a career that gave me that flexibility by working remotely.

Right now, my week days often don’t leave me the time.

I’m going to be doing some re-organizing so that I can get back to it. But, until then, I’m going to simply embrace this season. Since I’m limited to less ride time, I’m focusing on small things in each ride. I spent several weeks this summer so frustrated with fewer rides per week that I ignored the positive headway I was making. This weekend, it all came together in a way that reminded me that there is always a silver lining.

Saturday Ride Report

Over my 3 1/2 years with Elf, I’ve generally had the best rides and made the most progress when we’re riding in the mornings. I have a feeling that it’s a combination of both of us tending to be in our best moods during that stretch after breakfast. Rides around feeding time tend to be an exercise in mitigating disaster. Evenings are a relatively low energy time for me so I often don’t feel like going to the barn then.

Last week, I rode on Saturday morning and it just wasn’t a productive time. With two trainers who have active lesson programs, Saturday mornings are incredibly busy! Our two rings start to look a bit like a circus. Elf needs to work on being in traffic but I’m not going to bother with it when I’m only riding twice a week.

Instead, I opted to ride Saturday evening. Central Texas cooperated with a spectacularly gorgeous evening. The air felt cool for the first time since April. No one else was riding, although there were a handful of people around. I had made plans to meet some barn friends for a drink after my ride so I made the most of exactly 30 minutes in the saddle.

My primary goal was to have a calm walk, trot and canter and being soft to the left (which is his stiff side). I started by asking for a stretchy walk and doing some large serpentines. Elf finds it easier to be consistent in the contact and in front of the leg going to right so I focused on moving his haunches around. To the left, I simply asked him to be in front of my leg and soft in the bridle (which meant asking for haunches in). From there, we moved on trot work with lengthenings on the long sides and diagonals. I also include stretchy 20m circles on a pretty regular basis as it cuts down on his fussiness. Because Elf tends to get very tight in his neck just in front of the withers, stretching is the ticket to keeping him calm and working with me. His canter work was spectacular – easy to put together, smooth transitions. We’ve wrestled with canter diagonals for as long as I’ve been taking dressage lessons. He wants to auto change but the anticipation makes him tense. His lovely canter loses its cadence. But this time? We are able to cross the diagonals and counter canter through the short & long side going both directions. He wasn’t as balanced counter cantering on the right lead but gave it a very good try. I think I needed to hold his haunches out but I was so surprised by how soft and together he was that I really wasn’t prepared for it!

I called it a day, rubbed him down and headed out for a beer and a slice of pizza backed up by live music  with barn friends. The combination of good ride and barn friends was exactly what I didn’t know that I needed. It’s so easy when we are in a busy season to feel that we don’t have time to do those “extra” things that nourish and replenish us emotionally, mentally. Just like the airplane instructions tell us, though, we have to put that oxygen mask on ourselves first in order to effectively help those around us. For me, that evening ride and an hour and a half with friends provided much needed oxygen.

Sunday Ride

Even though I know that weekends are my main time to ride, I’ve been struggling to get my Sunday ride in. I’ve developed a Sunday routine over the three years I’ve been in Texas. I watch my news shows. Do my weekly meal planning and grocery list. Hang out a bit in my yoga pants before going grocery shopping with the family and running any general errands. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for the barn. But the truth is that my husband likes to sleep in. I can DVR the national news and watch it later and riding on Sunday means getting an early start.

I gave myself a swift kick in the butt and got going early enough to enjoy another spectacular almost-Fall Texas day. Elf doesn’t often have two really good days in a row so I was prepared for a bit of dramatics. Other than a few attempts to pop out his shoulder (straight out of the arena), though, he was quite the rockstar. I repeated the same walk warm up, realizing pretty quickly that he seemed a bit out of sorts in the trot work. He wasn’t off but didn’t feel quite as strong as he had on Saturday. With only working once or twice a week, I don’t imagine it takes much to get a tad sore. The canter is easier for him to stretch into when he’s stiff so we moved straight into that.

This time, I added an exercise that we’ve touched on a few times before. Elf has wonderful, sweepy, hunter canter when he’s using himself correctly. If he’s tense and tight through his back and not in a steady connection, it’s something like riding a train with pogo sticks instead of wheels. The number 1 benefit 2 years of dressage lessons has gifted us with is a significantly improved canter. He finds it relatively easy to stretch through his back in the canter, especially through circles and leg yielding on the circle. I wanted to work making his canter more adjustable while keeping him soft in the bridle. After establishing a good canter to the right (his better direction), we went around the arena doing first a 15m circle then a 10(ish)m circle at V, S, P and R. The first two attempts were basically 2 15m circles. In order to stay balanced through the 10m circle, Elf has to be steady in the connection and working off my seat. He’s actually very good at sitting behind and turning, when he’s paying attention. This exercise forces him to concentrate and pay attention while working with something he finds relatively easy on a physical level. After two rounds of that to the right, we went across the diagonal without asking for the change and asking for counter canter. He gave me a beautiful diagonal (which has been two years in the making) but lost his balance in the corner. A forward stretchy trot back around to A gave him a change to stretch.

After a little walk break (easily more for me than him), we did the same exercise to the left. This was harder for him – especially the 10m circles – but yielded a distinct improvement in the consistency of his bend. The repetition of doing the circles four times meant that he figured out he needed to sit back in order to not be dirt-biking through the corner. Instead of me wrestling with him being heavy in my left hand, the circle helped him fix it on his own. When his balance would falter, I’m finding that I can ease him back into that bend by asking for a bit of counter-flexion and haunches out for a stride or two. Then, asking him to move his haunches in encourages him to soften to the inside hand and lift his shoulders. He gave it such a good effort that I after a solid diagonal and a bit of stretchy trot & canter, we called it a day.

Spa Day

Over the Spring and Summer, I’ve left Elf’s mane grow out until he resembled a rather overgrown cow pony. I’ve had a bracelet from Enter At A on my wishlist for quite a while. Since I love how light Elf’s mane gets in the summer, I decided to let it grow to the needed length and use that. Yesterday, I cut the needed snippets and gave him a general spa day. A bath, clipping his legs/bridle path/nose and trimming his mane and tail make an enormous difference!

Sidenote: I know that clipping the nose can be controversial. For Elf, his whiskers get *very* long and the ones above his nostrils seem to get irritated by the bridle. He is quieter and happier in the bridle with them trimmed. I leave him with the whiskers on the end of his nose (although trimmed a bit because he has hairy old man nose & ear hair). 

For the moment, I’m pleased with where our weekend rides are taking us.