Remembering the issues from the last ride due to the slippery footing, I am hoping to work through that. Arabee needs to learn to cope with the slick mud - right now she just freaks out and wants to go fast...but what that does is make her slip around even more. So I kept her mainly to a walk.
We did a lot of hills, alot of ditch crossing, a lot of transitions, a lot of work at going in a straight line - she was good at bending in circles or serpentines.
I constantly had to fight to keep her attention on me again, but this time I won (more or less). About 20 minutes in she would consistently flick her ear back to me if I asked for her to do something. I felt much better once she started doing that, and decided it was time to do short trotting sessions. Since she was still freaking out about slipping, we'd trot for about 50 feet at a time, then walk 25-50 feet, then trot again. Eventually I could feel her relax about it and we were able to trot nearly full laps.
I can tell Arabee is starting to gain fitness - she's a bit more difficult to handle and ready to go. I am also getting the impression she's beginning to become bored with what we're doing. Time to kick it up a notch, she says.
Matt's off tomorrow (they've cut his hours back to 5 days one week, 4 days next - every other week so a 10% pay cut - but I'm not complaining because at least he's still employed. They're doing a lot of lay-offs right now) so I'll ride in the morning. Hope to do a more intense, but shorter session in preparation for Saturday's ride. I'm thinking short warm up, 30 minutes of nothing but trot and canter, then cool down.
This is what she looked like after last night's ride: Muddy, and can you see her tail??? FULL of cockleburrs! I hope they came out on their own overnight....
3 comments:
Tell me if those cockelburrs come out on their own over night? Usually they just bed themselves in further.
You going to Clark Saturday? Laura and I are still planning on it.
Michelle Detmer
yeah.....they DIDN'T. so far not worse though, I will have to take a comb to her tail pretty quick.
I think so. I need to see about a couple of things, but I am planning on going.
Yes Nicole is going, but I need some driving directions to her house so I can print them out!!! Nicole plan on me getting there around 8:30 as long as I don't encounter any problems. You better email me your phone # again to. You can use my hubby's email drey@nalu.net, but also copy to the other. Surely I'll get it one way or another.
Post a Comment