Riding Update 1/29-2/1

Where is my coordinating pad woman?

Whew! After a (business) week of a post every single day of course I get knocked on my ass. Monday I got super sick. But before then, I got some good rides in!

Friday I was supposed to have a lesson but CJ had to go out of town. I don't remember doing anything super spectacular, just a generic ride.

Saturday I finally brought out the AWESOME pink sparkle polos from Alli & Dino. They are epic. Only thing I need to do is add an extra tab of velcro because the sparkle velcro tab is too long for the other side of the velcro (wow I can't explain anything)

We had a fabulously relaxed ride where we did a lot of stretchy trot. We also got some very good canter transitions in. Our walking spiral in is doing great as well!

Sunday is when I had rescheduled my lesson and for whatever reason it was postponed again. Personally I tell CJ to reschedule for whenever because right now we aren't doing anything exciting and I'm poor so one more day of pretending to have money is great. He was kind of a jerk and just overall pissy. He was exceptionally over sensitive. We attempted to transition frequently like we have to for tests but he wasn't ready for that yet apparently. I basically just ended up doing a lot of long and low to keep him stress free. 

Monday Ries told me he was overwhelmed with the workload. I stopped doing chores at the barn which makes me actually want to be at the barn all the time again! Previously I would be at the barn but I didn't get a chance to ride. This was the first time he had been ridden three days in a row in quite some time. 

When I first went to grab him from his stall he was standing in his stall stone still, perplexed by something in the field across the street. Standing in the cross ties he was very jumpy as well. It didn't help that his dumb OTTB neighbor was freaking out and running from his paddock into the barn and slamming into walls along the way. 

As soon as we left the barn and headed for the indoor he started jigging. I attempted to just hand walk him around the indoor once hoping it would relax him enough to just jump on. This was not the case. So instead I ran back into the barn and grabbed the lunge line and whip. 

Once I got the majority of his nervous energy out I hopped on. I kept it short and simple and just reminded him that I was in control of the situation and he was safe. We ended the maybe ten minute ride by walking figure 8s around the indoor for 15 minutes on the buckle. There were a lot of sighs of relief towards the end of our walking. I thanked him for holding his composure during our ~terrifying~ ride. He was very relaxed and happy going back into the barn. 

About 2 hours after the ride I suddenly felt very ill and was miserable with some weird sinus pressure, migrane, fever combo for the next few days (which was good timing because I had planned on giving him a few days off). I'm feeling much better today which means riding for the weekend!