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Aug. 28th, 2007 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI had a good horse outing yesterday despite the fact that Casper threw both easyboots (we found them again). We didn't take the grey idiot along, but we've got to start doing that on Wednesday. School starts for Cass today, which she's not happy about. ("How will I be able to ride after a full day of school?" She was not impressed by my "Well, kiddo, I ride after a full day of work.")
I got two books on things-to-do with one's horse, both designed for people who have 20-meter x 60-meter arenas with good footing. Guess what I don't have? However, a lot of the exercises don't *really* require an arena. I can do stuff like "walk ten steps, trot ten steps, walk ten steps..." in a straight line on the road. It's hard. Very hard. It's hard enough that we did not succeed, not even once. However, we had fun trying and we were getting better there, at the end.
We also worked on leg-yields across the road, over and over. Leg-yield to the left, trot straight for like twenty steps, leg-yield to the right, trot straight, etc. The goof is quite good at leg-yield. I'm kind of amazed, but what the hell. The only thing I still need to fix there is that she tries to speed up FIRST and THEN goes sideways when the leg doesn't come off. I need to clarify that ONE LEG means SIDEWAYS and TWO LEGS means SPEED UP.
In other news, we've also finally developed a trot (jog) that I can fucking sit. Yay!! Nick only had one speed at the trot when we started this year. Now she's got like five, two of which are kind of comfy (but not fast) and two of which are postable (and kind of speedy) and one of which I can only balance in two-point and trust that she doesn't kill us both. That one's really quite speedy.
We did seven and a half miles in about an hour and fifteen minutes, though this included walking almost the entire way back down the mountain because I hate trotting downhill and because it's hard on the horse's joints. We trotted almost all of the measured four-mile distance (new -- usually we do more walking) and the horses seemed to handle that well. I'm going to introduce the concept of working-trot for distance, slow-trot to recover on Wednesday, when I will, yes, drag the grey idiot along.
Who's the grey idiot? He's an overly-smart gelding that La's taking to the ride. He needs some conditioning. She gets home from work about thirty minutes before she goes to bed due to having a hideous and abusive commute. Therefore, she can't condition him. The game plan here is to stuff the grey idiot into the 1/8" rope halter and drag him along. He *should* pony. (Most everything ponies in the 1/8" rope halter. It is bitey and horses do not lay back into it more than once.) Nick *should* be able to pony him. (I hope.) He should also be able to keep up because he's three inches taller than Nick, built better, and not carrying a rider. I remain optimistic.
I got two books on things-to-do with one's horse, both designed for people who have 20-meter x 60-meter arenas with good footing. Guess what I don't have? However, a lot of the exercises don't *really* require an arena. I can do stuff like "walk ten steps, trot ten steps, walk ten steps..." in a straight line on the road. It's hard. Very hard. It's hard enough that we did not succeed, not even once. However, we had fun trying and we were getting better there, at the end.
We also worked on leg-yields across the road, over and over. Leg-yield to the left, trot straight for like twenty steps, leg-yield to the right, trot straight, etc. The goof is quite good at leg-yield. I'm kind of amazed, but what the hell. The only thing I still need to fix there is that she tries to speed up FIRST and THEN goes sideways when the leg doesn't come off. I need to clarify that ONE LEG means SIDEWAYS and TWO LEGS means SPEED UP.
In other news, we've also finally developed a trot (jog) that I can fucking sit. Yay!! Nick only had one speed at the trot when we started this year. Now she's got like five, two of which are kind of comfy (but not fast) and two of which are postable (and kind of speedy) and one of which I can only balance in two-point and trust that she doesn't kill us both. That one's really quite speedy.
We did seven and a half miles in about an hour and fifteen minutes, though this included walking almost the entire way back down the mountain because I hate trotting downhill and because it's hard on the horse's joints. We trotted almost all of the measured four-mile distance (new -- usually we do more walking) and the horses seemed to handle that well. I'm going to introduce the concept of working-trot for distance, slow-trot to recover on Wednesday, when I will, yes, drag the grey idiot along.
Who's the grey idiot? He's an overly-smart gelding that La's taking to the ride. He needs some conditioning. She gets home from work about thirty minutes before she goes to bed due to having a hideous and abusive commute. Therefore, she can't condition him. The game plan here is to stuff the grey idiot into the 1/8" rope halter and drag him along. He *should* pony. (Most everything ponies in the 1/8" rope halter. It is bitey and horses do not lay back into it more than once.) Nick *should* be able to pony him. (I hope.) He should also be able to keep up because he's three inches taller than Nick, built better, and not carrying a rider. I remain optimistic.
