Thursday, March 11, 2010

Spring is in the air!

I am very happy with mother nature this week because spring is definitely in the air. It has been in the mid 50s to low 60s and sunny all week. It has been beautiful riding weather. I love it!

So first I will give you my usual weekly riding update. Last Saturday was the first of the nice days so we just hacked around the farm and did some of the log jumps in the back with E and Patty. Then Sunday we had a games day. We went in the back cranked up the radio and did some barrels with K and E. Satin and I practiced our turns the way R showed us a few lessons ago. We started at the trot and lope doing some dashes and she was great. So I decided to let her do some fast ones. Her turns were awesome. The only issue was she got a little over excited and tried to buck a couple of times, but other than that she was great. LOL! So then I decided to trot the full pattern since that is one of our weaker events. She did it nicely at the trot than I did a few at the lope and her turns were beautiful, so I let her do one faster one which she did nicely. If she keeps this up we will be unstoppable come barrel season!

Monday we went on a trail ride...FINALLY! We had an interesting mishap which I feel deserves a seperate post so I will write that up after this one. Anyway fast forward to Tuesday. Satin and I just did a short workout in the ring. She jogged and loped nicely and had some nice quarter turns and sidepass, so I decided not to push my luck and just ended it there, plus she had two long workouts Sunday and Monday.

Yesterday we had a lesson and I must say Satin was absolutely FABULOUS! We finally got to ride in R's outdoor ring as the weather was nice. The jog started our a bit quick and she was very busy looking around and taking in all the sites of the outdoor. She is a very curious pony. So we did some warm up work at the posting trot while she settled in. We did circles, bending, and weaving in and out of jumps. When I asked her to lope she picked it up right on the spot as she usually does (except for last lesson) and stayed in slow steady pace, even when I went to one hand, which we have not done in quite a while. We did a lot of transition work, with R putting me through a pseudo command class you could say. We went lope to jog, halt to lope, lope to walk, lope to halt, etc etc. And all of her transitions were absolutely flawless. She was totally on the ball. R also added circles, backing, reversing, etc and Satin was ready and waiting each and every time. She is very a smart mare, always anticipating the next step which is not always a good thing, but most of the time it works for us. She reads my mind, knowing exactly what I am going to ask before I ask it. Anyway we then did some pattern work. We did figure eights at the jog, lope, and extended lope with simple and flying changes. Her flying changes were a bit rusty in the beginning though part of it was my fault in cueing and set up. In the end though we got beautiful and flawless changes! Then we did some sidepass work, which ended nicely and finished up with quarter turns. We did them first at the jog which went well then did some loping, halting and asking. Those were a bit harder, but in the end we got some nice ones. Overall I was very happy with our lesson and hope she stays this perfect through show season, which is just around the corner!

This weekend I am going upstate to J's ranch so Satin will have a well deserved few days off, though I hear it is going to be raining all weekend anway, at least here have to check on up there. In other news, I am in the process of getting an actual website for my photography so shuttersavvyimages.com will be up and running soon and hopefully it will lead o some jobs. I also met with the internship guy at school to get the ball rolling there. I am hoping to intern at Horse News but I have to check on a few things first. Anyway that's about it for now. Not looking forward to rain, wish it would stay nice. Hopefully it is nice next week for my spring break. I can't wait because this week has been stressful with midterms. Hope you all are enjoying this springtime weather with your horses and look out for my trail ride post later today!

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