Trucking Along

The good news is, everything is continuing along in an upward trajectory.

The bad news is, that's super boring.

Kind of a bummer to finally decide to return to blogging only to have the star of the show spend the majority of the year going from one lameness to another. I mean really, Opie, we have content to create here. The people want to see media. The people want cantering. Instead the people are going to get another post about trit-trotting for five minutes.

Our rides are basically walking for fifteen-ish minutes, trotting for five-ish minutes, and then finishing trying to convince Opie that a chill stretchy walk after such a boring workout is actually super duper fun. He's sort of starting to get on board with relaxing, but he's a horse that really likes having a job and doing the job, and he's much happier being overworked than under. Rest breaks are offensive, this stupid limited workload is offensive, wrapping things up after twenty minutes of low impact work is offensive, etc etc. 

He's been feeling consistently sound enough lately--although still weak on that LH--that I've felt comfortable bringing back in some brain exercises. For instance, today in our lesson we worked on upward and downward w/t transitions AND the halfpass! 

in our lesson 2 weeks ago we worked on riding a circle without
pulling on the inside rein. you can see why this was an issue lol.

Opie's transitions have always sucked because he anticipates everything and braces. It's great you want to be a smart boy and know the answer before it's even being asked, but maybe you could try to wait and listen. 

We were able to identify pretty quickly that he convinces me he cannot possibly go any faster if I insist on keeping my outside rein to myself, so I just chuck it at him. That's not correct obvi, so I focused on keeping my elbow cemented to my side and he just had to get over himself and move off my leg. That's the fun part of dressage--you never ever get done cleaning up the basics. Forever and always. 

He was quite annoyed with our insistence he could do things on our terms and not us giving in to his every demand. Instead of forcing the issue too much, once we got "good enough for now, just do those another thousand times (thanks, MB)" we got to work on the halfpass to give his brain something tricky to work on. 

i've been playing with bits since we're not doing anything
exciting and putting him back in his baby full cheek has fixed
his weird right head tilt

To the right, we went SI to HP to SI and back again, focusing on getting him to stand up his shoulders. The goal was to make him elevate in front so much he doesn't look like a pony anymore: "Opie, you look like you're 16.1hh now!" To the left it was renvers to HP without letting him get quick and crooked.

We did a few each way at the walk, and one each way in the trot, and then he got to be all done and actually deigned to do a really good stretch while only kind of running off with me. He says that was much better than what we have been doing, but mentally he could have done a whole lot more. Your weak AF butt disagrees, sir.

first snow of the season!
and today he's a nakey horse in the sun.

Hopefully we can keep trucking along on this path over the winter. I'd rather go too slow and bore poor Dopie to death and come out in the spring feeling sound and strong then rush things because it's boring and put us back at square one yet again. 

I'm planning on working on our right lead canter transitions next month if he continues to feel stronger like he is. Another thing to give him "work" without getting too wild. Add it to our fun list of: turns on the haunches, leg yields, straight circles (not pulling my horse's head and neck in), SI, HP, and stretching without raging. So many things to do in the walk! 

And for his cooperation, he keeps getting his red light therapy, PEMF, stretching, and special shoes. And custom diet that he mostly deigns to eat. We can't have things be too easy.