The weather continues hot...
Aug. 10th, 2022 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIt is hot. It is hot every day after work, so hot that my light-colored horse stands in the shade sweating. Neither he nor I want to go for a ride at 4:30 in the afternoon. I barely want to go for a ride at 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening. It is just... hot and sticky and I get that we're in August. I do understand that. But wow, I could really use a break from the weather.
I ride in the evenings, usually after 6:30. The work area we use in the hayfield is in full shade at that point of the day and the temperature has dropped some from the very worst, so it's as good as I can make it. I'm still sweating balls and so is my horse, even with numerous walk breaks that include grass snacks. It's so bad that he's pleasant about hosing after rides. (He only sees the hose if it's brutally hot because he rolls in dirt when wet and then is encrusted in ground-in filth for the next day.)
But, my DLB notes are fresh in my head. Best to work on them when they're fresh, at least the parts that weren't LOOKIT MY HORSE DO THE THING HE REALLY DOES IT FOR REAL validation. So I've been doing that. It's early days, but I think headway is being made. Slow headway, which is the only kind I can ever make in dressage, but still headway.
More active inside hip is helping A LOT with canter. Turns out that if your hip is suggesting canter, horse feels more committed to the idea of canter and does not flop out into shitty trot at the first available opportunity. Good to know. I need to get better at this, but even relatively shitty and unskilled efforts are helping a lot.
Working on walk-canter-walk (same lead, focus is on reasonably tidy, prompt-ish, orderly transitions) is going fairly well. Horse, while a sensitive snowflake at the best of times, is NOT getting flustered or angry or short-fused about the work and these transitions are improving. (He can work them for about four or five tries per side, but then his efforts kinda... flatten out. It feels just like when he runs out of abs for lateral goodness, same deal. At that juncture, I put the exercise away and we do something else for a while.) I feel like rider could *do less* -- horse clearly understands the little hip-lift cue with outside leg back a hair and any other rider movement (like, say, of the upper body) is NOT REALLY HELPING and should probably be discarded. *sigh* It's not you, Bird, it's me. Imma work on it more.
Alternating leads with simple (trot) transitions between is a snooze for horse. He does not ever get any wrong and he feels very... comfortable in this exercise. These are way easier than walk-canter transitions. Rider needs to improve organization and timing, so we will still be revisiting this for a while even though Bird knows the drill pretty well.
Lateral skills in trot... a couple of days worth of effort on adjustable angles in shoulder-in has really improved what we've got going on there. He's now open to a fairly wide range of angles and can hold a designated angle pretty consistently in the movement though the bigger angles are commensurately harder for him. Too big of an angle and he winds up on the knife edge of wobbly-angle-or-shitty-rhythm which is not ideal so we try not to do that.
Lateral skills in canter -- that hip thing, it is kinda effing useful for improving our efforts here, too. Shoulder-in in canter is no longer "blink and you will miss it" but "hey, he does seem to be doing the thing in a halfway recognizable manner" on both leads and half pass in canter has gone from LOLNOPE to "visibly the thing on left lead" and "three not-quite-there strides, followed by about four good strides followed by complete deflation of horse and utter failure" on the right lead which sounds maybe discouraging but IS NOT because we had utter bupkis for half pass in either direction prior to applying the hip thing. We're both stronger on the left lead, so there will be Extra Helpings of Right Lead in the offing, but this is encouraging progress just the same.
I ordered a new tree for his saddle and I don't know why it's not here yet. Haven't gotten a shipping confirmation yet either. I may have to call them and find out what's up.
Anyway, that's state of the horse in August. We're carefully grinding away at our current projects. It'll be a while before I have any truly exciting developments on the flying changes project because we're still in the getting-ready phase. "Just about ready" is NOT the same as "Actually ready" even if I want it to be. :)
I ride in the evenings, usually after 6:30. The work area we use in the hayfield is in full shade at that point of the day and the temperature has dropped some from the very worst, so it's as good as I can make it. I'm still sweating balls and so is my horse, even with numerous walk breaks that include grass snacks. It's so bad that he's pleasant about hosing after rides. (He only sees the hose if it's brutally hot because he rolls in dirt when wet and then is encrusted in ground-in filth for the next day.)
But, my DLB notes are fresh in my head. Best to work on them when they're fresh, at least the parts that weren't LOOKIT MY HORSE DO THE THING HE REALLY DOES IT FOR REAL validation. So I've been doing that. It's early days, but I think headway is being made. Slow headway, which is the only kind I can ever make in dressage, but still headway.
More active inside hip is helping A LOT with canter. Turns out that if your hip is suggesting canter, horse feels more committed to the idea of canter and does not flop out into shitty trot at the first available opportunity. Good to know. I need to get better at this, but even relatively shitty and unskilled efforts are helping a lot.
Working on walk-canter-walk (same lead, focus is on reasonably tidy, prompt-ish, orderly transitions) is going fairly well. Horse, while a sensitive snowflake at the best of times, is NOT getting flustered or angry or short-fused about the work and these transitions are improving. (He can work them for about four or five tries per side, but then his efforts kinda... flatten out. It feels just like when he runs out of abs for lateral goodness, same deal. At that juncture, I put the exercise away and we do something else for a while.) I feel like rider could *do less* -- horse clearly understands the little hip-lift cue with outside leg back a hair and any other rider movement (like, say, of the upper body) is NOT REALLY HELPING and should probably be discarded. *sigh* It's not you, Bird, it's me. Imma work on it more.
Alternating leads with simple (trot) transitions between is a snooze for horse. He does not ever get any wrong and he feels very... comfortable in this exercise. These are way easier than walk-canter transitions. Rider needs to improve organization and timing, so we will still be revisiting this for a while even though Bird knows the drill pretty well.
Lateral skills in trot... a couple of days worth of effort on adjustable angles in shoulder-in has really improved what we've got going on there. He's now open to a fairly wide range of angles and can hold a designated angle pretty consistently in the movement though the bigger angles are commensurately harder for him. Too big of an angle and he winds up on the knife edge of wobbly-angle-or-shitty-rhythm which is not ideal so we try not to do that.
Lateral skills in canter -- that hip thing, it is kinda effing useful for improving our efforts here, too. Shoulder-in in canter is no longer "blink and you will miss it" but "hey, he does seem to be doing the thing in a halfway recognizable manner" on both leads and half pass in canter has gone from LOLNOPE to "visibly the thing on left lead" and "three not-quite-there strides, followed by about four good strides followed by complete deflation of horse and utter failure" on the right lead which sounds maybe discouraging but IS NOT because we had utter bupkis for half pass in either direction prior to applying the hip thing. We're both stronger on the left lead, so there will be Extra Helpings of Right Lead in the offing, but this is encouraging progress just the same.
I ordered a new tree for his saddle and I don't know why it's not here yet. Haven't gotten a shipping confirmation yet either. I may have to call them and find out what's up.
Anyway, that's state of the horse in August. We're carefully grinding away at our current projects. It'll be a while before I have any truly exciting developments on the flying changes project because we're still in the getting-ready phase. "Just about ready" is NOT the same as "Actually ready" even if I want it to be. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-10 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 02:33 am (UTC)A new tree? What kind of saddle is that?
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 03:59 am (UTC)The saddle itself is a Thorowgood AP saddle that I bought for Bird when he was 4. It's partly synthetic but the flocking is all-wool and the saddle has worn like iron despite... a less than pampered existence. When I bought it, saddle fitter Emily (she works out of Hastilow USA) promised me that it would (with gullet changes as appropriate) fit my horse as he grew up and it has done so. It's not going to wow anybody but it's affordable, sturdy, reasonably comfortable, and fits my horse. Two thumbs up, would buy again.
For what it's worth, Bird is on his fourth size of gullet plate. The last time he went up a size was in spring of 2020, I made a note about it here because of the difficulty of getting saddles fitted during COVID, it was a whole thing and we did a picture consult (linked in post) that clearly illustrates my redneck life.) I also have (per saddle fitter's suggestion) a prolite pad that I use flat (no shims) under the saddle because according to fitter I "ride a lot" and the prolite helps keep the flocking uncompressed for longer, thereby extending the time between saddle fitter bills. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-21 09:35 pm (UTC)Do you check with the fitter every so often, or just when you suspect there's something off?
no subject
Date: 2022-08-22 12:06 am (UTC)Too-narrow-a-gullet (horse is now wider, you need to go up a size) has the following symptoms: saddle looks and feels "rocked back" and you're suddenly posting out of a ditch, possibly horse has some loin soreness (if you don't address it early enough), saddle shifts or slides backward during work, saddle pad ripples behind girth during work (from saddle sliding back). Bird's been through this three times now so at this point it's "Yeah, time to move up again".
I feel like playing pro se gullet changer COMES WITH a pretty serious duty to inspect and monitor (sweat patterns, back palpation, see how horse is performing, how does saddle ride, are things OK) the saddle fit situation, especially after any changes one makes. Also some issues (flocking problems are real!) cannot be fixed by playing games with the interchangeable gullets and folks need to be aware of that, too.
I also still see the fitter yearly to make sure I'm not drunk on my own koolaid. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 02:23 pm (UTC)lolol