On Tuesday we rode on the strip and on Wednesday we did a little turn around the second strip and the three hills. Both rides were fantastic. The weather has been phenomenal, and Steen has been relaxed and willing. On Tuesday I worked more on switching between the lope and the walk. After a few one-rein… Read more »
lope
Riding a Wade
I’ve been wanting to try out Brian’s saddle for a while, and lately Steen’s saddle has been riding lower on his shoulders and leaving dry spots again. I’m increasingly convinced the fit is just not ideal. Brian’s saddle has a fairly narrow, high gullet that I have suspected would be a good fit for Steen.… Read more »
Out Enjoying the Weather
Looking out the window, you would never guess it’s only March. All last week our yard was carpeted in crocuses. The grass is up and growing like mad. This whole week was sunny and in the 60’s. Today we continued what we hope becomes our new Sunday tradition, which is to leave the barn behind.… Read more »
The Plan
As I mentioned in my last blog, I had a plan to work on our trotting for the next ride: warm up, move right into the lope for a while, cool down for a couple minutes, and then work on the trot. And I was quite surprised when the plan worked far better than I… Read more »
Cloudy Day, Long Ride
Last week I redesigned this blog again. I liked the old design for a long time and then it slowly started to annoy me, so we’ve got a totally fresh approach now. We didn’t ride Thursday or Friday, so we were keen to get out there today. My goal for the ride was to continue… Read more »
Steen So Soft
It was back to “work” today after our leisurely trail ride on Sunday followed by two much-needed days off for all of us. I was curious to see how Steen was feeling after his little break, and right when I first got on I thought we were in for a sub-par day. Starting out, Steen’s… Read more »
Catching Up
I’ve fallen a bit behind on my blog. Fortunately I have been getting plenty of riding in, I just haven’t done a good job posting about my rides. To sum up: Last week I continued to work quite a lot on loping. We went through a couple of days where the loping work had the undesirable effect… Read more »
Slow and Steady
I don’t mean that we didn’t go fast at all, but rather I focused on keeping things more systematic. So that if anything did start to not go so well, I could easily slow down and work out the problems. After thinking more about my last ride, reading some things, and talking to Robin (it… Read more »
Too Much?
We were about 10 minutes into yesterday’s ride and I was wondering if I had been doing too much lately. It was only about a week and a half ago that I started riding quite consistently again. Those rides were on the easy and short side, and Bear seemed to respond well to them. Then… Read more »
Lotsa Lope
We had another beautiful day today. It feels so good to go out and spend some time in the sun. The boys were ultra relaxed during grooming, and the footing on the strip was much better. I started out with loping figure-eights pretty early and my first session of this was fantastic. Almost every loop… Read more »