Annabelle update, so I can go back and look at this later. Last update was July 4. For the rest of July, we worked pretty consistently, and were finally able to schedule a lesson at the end of the month in which we worked on going out to the bit, slight stretching, changing the trot, and changing the frame. A good takeaway exercise from that lesson was doing a walking TOF, and then trotting off. Poor A was a bit perplexed by this rapid set of requests, and had trouble untangling her feet, so it went on the list to work on.
The day after that, she fell and went *splat* on the lunge line, and scraped up her stifle and had some sore ribs, so she was off riding for almost two weeks. Vet check and stifle was fine, luckily, she was just a bit stiff and sore. Then with about 5 rides back from that accident, she scraped up her leg and came up with a swollen hock, and was off four weeks. This turned out to maybe be a blessing in disguise, because I was freshly back from a Jillian Kreinbring workshop, and enthusiastic to do lots of ground work, so we worked lateral flexions, TOF, TOH, RB and LY from the ground several times a week, then reintroduced lunging as she got better. I've also been doing a marching walk around the arena with her on about 10' of line when we start each day; with that, she is getting a little livelier in her walk, but is still rather pokey.
She's been back under saddle for a few weeks now and I'm trying to stick with a 3 day US/2 day groundwork schedule for now. With careful lunging, she is getting much better at picking up her right lead, and is even able to stay round and balanced through the transition. We are introducing more LY under saddle as she likes to fall in left, especially. The TOF -> trot exercise has been helpful, and she has improved a lot in giving a forward response instead of getting balky and stuck when she feels me prepare for an up transition.
First little show was today - copy and paste from the 8-week challenge thread:
Hey, we did a thing! Just Intro A and B at a little event derby, which was just the right speed for us. I still managed to flub up Intro A of all things
by doing free walk where it's supposed to be trot across the diagonal to change reins. We got a lot of rain last night, and the only place to warm up was a grass field that was super frosty and wet, so we didn't really get much warmup at all, except for some tentative trotting on the lunge line before I decided I'd better crawl on.
Good info learned for next time:
She gets sticky and rubber-necked in the ring. Make sure she is very IFL before test
Jacket needs to be shortened if I'm going to wear silicone full seats while posting. Tails sticking to butt and getting wedged under the seat is distracting.
Don't practice a test that you "sort of" know beforehand. I think my off-course error was because I'd practiced it that way earlier this week before I had the test fully memorized. Motor memory is a strong force in the universe.
When there's a hard rain and 5 pm, and it's 28F the next morning, allow extra time because your truck will be covered in a sheet of ice.
Posting this one because I like how her neck muscling looks:
so there is a lot to do in teaching her about contact, but she is coming along and there are some nice moments. She is also learning to bend and do a bit of TOH and LY, and has a great, teachable brain. Since she has a long neck and fine throatlatch, she could easily tend towards curling, so I'm favoring allowing her to go above the bit as she needs to and learns to come out and take contact. I want to transition to riding in a CC saddle for the next several months, but I'm waiting on the correct size of girth to be delivered. Hoping to take her out to a show at TL this fall and do some of the x-rails level event derbies and such as well before winter hits.
