Ride 48

 I've had a headache all day and I've been under a lot of stress lately, so I decided to hop on for a short ride just to forget about everything for a while.  The ride sort of replaced his workout for today.  I didn't even change out of my ugly sweat pants and sneakers... I just grabbed my bridle and helmet and hopped on (after brushing him while he grazed).

Chrome was............ rusty..... lol.  I haven't ridden him in over a month and it's obvious!!  I think having to use the rope halter lately is making him dull to the halter and bridle again.  I finally fixed my blue nylon halter (wow that was tougher than I thought it would be), so I'll switch back to that and do some in hand work to get him more responsive to the halter.  The fact that I keep a loop in the lead rope when leading him probably doesn't help us practice either!  Maybe I need to do some ground driving... or just a lot more riding...

Anyway since he was being hard to turn and stop I did some practice on both.  He was turning easily to the right, but being very braced going left so I stopped him and flexed him left a few times.  At first he walked circles and braced but as soon as he remembered what I was asking he easily and quickly flexed left every time I asked.  The funny part is that he kept trying to play with the leg of my sweat pants hehe.

We also worked on whoa.  He was being awful!  The fewest steps I could get after asking was three.  Then I remembered to use the vocal cue and he was doing better, but we need to work on that to remind him to stop even without the vocal cue.

Other than that he was fine.  We did some trotting and he even maintained the trot through some ninety degree turns, but we don't have a place to practice circles so not sure if he can do those yet.

I'm trying to remember what else we did... this headache is making it hard to think... oh yeah we walked over the hay bale about three times and walked over some trees that are about knee height on him.  That was his stifle workout for today hehe.

Here is a picture my hubby got for me... I look awful with my sweat pants riding up and my dirty sneakers (I really need to clean them!!! Never buying white shoes again even if they are only ten dollars).

Did you notice something new?  My awesome new helmet cover in my favorite color blue!!!  That is a gift from my awesome friend appydoesdressage over at LogDog Acres.  Isn't she the best??  I absolutely love it!  My old helmet was starting to look beat up so I'm happy to have a cover for it.  Now I need to get me and Chrome decked out in all our blue stuff for pictures hehe.

Isn't he looking awesome?

After riding I did the pelvis tucks (three of them) and his hip stretch on both sides.  Oh I almost forgot!  During the ride we practiced backing up (he sucks at it, but he tried) and did some backing uphill.  Like I said before we sort of replaced his workout with the ride, backing uphill, sit ups and hip stretches.  I didn't follow the routine exactly since I didn't write it down and just did whatever I remembered, but it works.  The routines are becoming too easy for him so I'm probably going to move on to the cardio phase soon.  :)  

Anyway I think I remembered everything... if not... oh well hehe.  I'll try to get back to posting more regularly again, but I'll probably continue to be busy for a while so we'll see.  Looking forward to getting caught up on your blogs!

P.S.  I almost forgot!!  Chrome is already getting sweet itch on his legs again... sigh!  I might need to try fly boots since fly spray isn't helping at all.  I don't want to buy any until I know if he's going to tear them up though...  so any ideas for homemade fly boots?