Gorgeous and Silly

He's such a goober. I came out to feed and he had that leaf just sitting there on his head. :)

trails with friends

It was a great day to go riding! I took Fleck out with Judy and Kelli and we had a fun trail ride. Fleck was definitely feeling grumpy though. Normally he loves Cash and Arwyn but as you can see, he was being a grump face. I think it's because something is still bothering him. He was just not quite right today. Kelli and Judy both could see something, but.. couldn't pinpoint it. We all think it's somewhat related to the back end. Although... that certainly didn't seem to stop him. Judy went for a gallop and I decided that I needed to go for a canter too if Fleck was feeling it. Kelli made some comment about riding without reins or something, so... as I cantered up the hill, Fleck wasn't kicking it into gallop mode, so I dropped the reins and pretended to fly with my outstretched hands. Yeah... Fleck was like "oh really"! So he took off into a bucking spree. Hee hee.. Gathered my reins and rode like a proper lady from then on. ;) But he did go for a little gallop and didn't seem any worse. So... I don't know what's bothering him or where, but whatever it is, it's subtle. Sigh.... Will schedule an appointment with Dr. Brown and see if we can fix it.

Squeezing it in

 

So today I worked all day and didn't really have much daylight left. But I really wanted to get a ride in, so I decided to hop on at home. At first Danny wanted to play and we had to fend him off for a second or two, but then he left us alone. Fleck and I warmed up and then started to work. But... something felt off. Fleck didn't feel lame but he was really resistant to bending to the right and was almost throwing his haunches out to the left, even when tracking right. And I'm pretty sure he normally throws them to the right. So... maybe he was actually just straight?!?! But I don't think so. I think something is bothering him. We cantered some and that went fine. Although for some reason I decided to try for a flying change and he threw in some serious bucks. hee hee. I don't even know if he got the change or not. I think he actually did and then started bucking. ;) oh well. We did a bit more work to see if I could figure it out and I never really could tell. But he was definitely wigglier than usual. So.. we'll see how he feels later and I'll adjust him and see if that helps too. Poor guy... I hate when he's not 100%. Especially because he keeps on trying.

Trail riding

 

Oh how I love this view. I just can't help myself. He's just so much fun. We had an okay dressage school and then hit the woods briefly.

Sunshine!!!

It was SUCH a beautiful day that even though Fleck probably deserved the day off, we had to go for a ride. I was in a t-shirt! We had fun just hitting the trails. And despite my intentions of walking mostly, we ended up doing some trotting and cantering. Because yep... it was just that kind of day. Fleck was game and initiated most of it, so... off we went. Whooo hoooo

Run and Jump All of the Jumps!

Sweetness!!! It felt so good to be back and jumping!!! Fleck agreed. :) It was a beautiful day to haul to Full Gallop and go XC schooling.
I adjusted Fleck before we went out and as I was doing it a group of people came up and were chatting with us. They asked if they could take our picture. Hee hee... Fleck is such a superstar. :)
Then we headed out and Fleck was a bit of a turd at first. He was so excited to be out there that he was running off and wouldn't bend and wouldn't supple. Beth had me canter him in a circle and spiral him in and out and he settled somewhat. We started jumping and after a bit, he calmed down and was ridable. He jumped everything we aimed him at without hesitation! He was feeling good!

Beth knew I wanted to tackle my trakehner so after some warming up we went to the training trakenher. Fleck jumped it fine but it felt skittery. Yes... that's a word! ;) So Beth looks at me and says "You're going to hate me"... and I said "nope.... I'm not... and you're going to make me trot it, aren't you?!". Yep! She said that we were just running at it. I told her I thought that it was all Fleck and not me. But she said that my energy was telling him to run and even if it wasn't, I wasn't telling him to NOT run. So still my fault. :) So... we trotted it. A couple of times. Both directions. And finally, it wasn't even remotely scary and we started jumping it lofty and floaty and not ... skittery. :) yay!
So then we carried on and Fleck jumped the privet fence like a boss. We jumped the water in and out with the upright fence at the edge. The water wasn't very full so Beth said if it had been more full, I would have needed to jump a bit more cautiously in. If we had gone in like we did the first time we jumped it (basically strong and leaving out a stride) and the water was full, we would have had a lot of drag on the backside and I would have risked getting flung off because of the stop of the forward momentum. But if I collected him and show jumped it a bit more (show jump on steroids) he would have dropped into it instead of flinging and it would have been much smoother. Aha! So we practiced that and it was smoother.

Then onto the trakehner... The prelim one. I asked if Beth was going to make me trot it. Heee! I'm actually surprised she didn't. But she did say that if I came in too fast, she would! She said that Fleck needs time to see and plan on the "scary" jumps. If I give him time to think, he will jump it fine. If I run him at it, he can't plan and so he runs out. So I came super slow to it and it was glorious! Okay, it wasn't super slow... it was normal speed but at least we weren't running. But by having him slightly slow and balanced and rocked back, I was able to move him up to it at the last step or two when I saw my distance and he jumped it lovely! We did it a few more times and once was even too slow and he had to heave over it, but it was a non-issue. So it was nice that we learned how to go slow and think it through. I really think it'll be helpful. Because not only is it helping Fleck see what he needs to navigate, it's helping me see my distance and thus I can react! Rather than just hope and pray. ;) I think I can use this for ALL my scary jumps! ha... I mentioned this to Beth and she just rolled her eyes at me. Like..."duh! I've been trying to tell you that for eons!". :)

So then we moved on to the banks and we did the double up and down bounce banks again. Jeesh those are scary! But kinda fun. Fleck has a tendency to stop halfway down because I'm being dumb up top. So we learned that while I need to lean way back, I can't pick my hands up. I think I'm holding his head up and keeping us from falling but in reality... by holding his head up, I'm hollowing out his back and causing his back legs to stop, which makes us stop in the middle and makes it awfully hard on him. So what I need to do is actually push DOWN with my hands onto his wither. Thus giving him his head and not messing with his back, AND.... pushing myself up off his neck, which is where I tend to want to land. We got better... well, he was great. I got better, but not perfect, but I didn't want to punish him and keep doing it. The double up went much smoother.

Then we headed to the water and my only issue there was that I was asking him to jump down off a bend and Beth said it was much wiser to jump straight into the water, then bend. Duh. And Fleck was a big boy and even big boy jumped into the water. No patting the ground first.

Whoo hooo. We finished with a big gallopy rampy fence and I had to ride better to get a better more balanced NOT FLAT gallop. But we did.

Fun fun day. Both of us were very happy to be back out and about and jumping. And Fleck felt great over the prelim stuff. :)

Another dressage lesson

I love my boys! I really am so blessed.
Fleck was good today and we worked more on getting him into that outside rein and using his shoulders and forelegs to push himself up off the ground and lifting his withers, rather than just sitting. He needs to lift that fore. We also did a fun half-pass off the rail, then leg yield to the rail, then canter exercise. It was a little tricky but we got better at it.

Good stuff. It's so good to be back in consistent work.