THE END OF JUNE…

It completely slipped my mind to write about these last few rides, but ah well. Lady’s been quite good, although definitely sluggish in the heat. I’ve been trying to get out as early as is humanly possible with a small child so that we miss the worst of the heat, but of course Texas is also deciding that now is the best time for random thunderstorms, which means not only is it hot, but it’s also horrifically muggy. My general rule is that if Lady is already sweating when I bring her in from the pasture, I won’t ask for anything more than a walk. It just doesn’t seem fair.

I’ve also been keeping our rides a bit shorter since it doesn’t take more than 4 or 5 minutes of trotting for us both to get a little hot. So shorter rides as well as more walk breaks. Just gotta be careful with the breaks because if I let Lady rest for too long she quits on me. And no amount of pushing will get her to wake back up. Lol!

JUNE 30TH

It was surprisingly cool outside, but still humid. Gross.

The bad news… Lady was still a bit off. Still not sure what is causing it, and she doesn’t seem particularly uncomfortable. She did get sassy on the lunge line, so that didn’t seem to bother her. I’ve got a few things I want to try this weekend to see if I can’t pinpoint the issue, but we’ll see what happens.

Anyways, I still rode, and she wanted to be an idiot. Very annoyed about turning away from home and all over the place as far as listening. We had a few tiny come-to-Jesus moments between her and the crop when she refused to acknowledge my leg. Helloooooo I’m trying to become less depending on rein aids and have sharper leg aids. Help me out here, girl.

Overall, she’s getting loads better about moving her hindquarters over, turning, leg yields, etc at the walk. The trot is still super messy. The trot still needs a lot of rhythm work though, so I’m going to work on that more soon, if her NQR issue goes away, and start adding in some more specific aids during that gait. It’s a work in progress, but the progress is visible at least!