The wind has been raging here again today and I couldn't get out on Radar until four o'clock or we would both have been blown all over the place. I didn't want to ride then, but one day soon, surely, we will get a day hunting and I would never forgive myself if he pulled a tendon through lack of fitness. The rain was threatening and I didn't want to be caught away from home in a rainstorm, so we schooled. We did get 5 minutes of driving rain, but we worked through it because the wind was obviously clearing the clouds quite quickly.
He was very unhappy about the wind and it took 35 minutes of non-stop trot for him to get a nice rythmic pace and round circles as opposed to 50p pieces :-) We had five minutes fretful walk and then 20 minutes of canter, at the end of which he produced some lovely, bouncing, rounded, light in the hand canter. He has always had a lovely canter, true dressage quality. He doesn't always agree to do it, because it is slower than he would like to be moving, but he gets it more easily each time we school. I use walk to canter transition to get him to balance himself, and I don't hold him together for it, I stop him chucking his head up, but apart from that he has to balance himself.
I test his balance in the canter by asking him to bring his head slightly in off the circle, and take it slightly out off the circle. I believe that if you can't move a horse's head like that in any pace you are in, that you don't truly have control of the shoulders, and it's a standard test I use with every horse. Radar is particularly difficult, because he tends to move his whole body in response to the request to move just his head, and that unbalances him. When he did get it today, it created the beautiful light and balanced canter that we finished with, so I'm very pleased with him.
We killed two birds with the one stone - he did some lovely work and he got a real workout by getting there. Now hopefully I can ride the other two tomorrow, though for sure Ace will be on the lunge first and the air jacket will be on!
C
Will the winds never end over there? It's been quiet here aside from the snow. Warmer temps on the way and rain during the week to wash the white stuff away.
ReplyDeleteRadar's progress continues. He was just left on his own for too long and never learned how to use that big body of his. Bet he's getting more and more agile in the pasture too. Of course, if he plays rug tag, etc. with the other boys, that might not be a good thing. *G*
That canter sounds like a dream and your "head in head out" exercise is an excellent one. Good to do at the counter canter as well once you're there.
Now all you need is some good hunting weather with equally good footing.
Touch wood no-one has ripped a rug for months. Tomorrow I'll have three in shreds, no doubt.
DeleteC.
Crazy wind here too. I was just telling someone today that Tetley knew wind from living in the Peak District, and that he knew rain and wet snow.
ReplyDeleteWhat a positive ride from Radar!
I'm hoping to get a hack in tomorrow ML, he's fed up with going round in circles.
DeleteC