Steady Forward
This week I have set up for Zetahra to work with Michelle twice since we will be gone next week and I want to be pretty clear of our hiccup before letting Z sit for a week.
I didn't have time Friday or Saturday for her (Saturday had two hours working with some girl scouts, which is always a mixture of fun and entertaining with a good sprinkle of mild chaos) so despite Chris being off Monday I took some time to work her in the evening (on our first 110° day of course!). I think this is the first time since Tristan was born that I have taken "me" horse time while Chris is home. And at that I spent just over an hour on grooming, tacking, working, and then feeding and watering the herd for the evening.
I worked Z walk-trot-canter pulling the doubletree and I think she is pretty much through the clanging noise thing as is evidenced by our session today.
Zetahra warmed up nicely. Michelle had suggested changing it up more, doing some rollbacks into the canter and trotting turns as well as jumps in gear changes (halt to trot, canter to halt, walk to canter, etc.) Because when Z gets bored she tunes out and starts looking for something to do/react to.
As with last week we hooked her straight up after the warm-up. She stood still nicely even with the shafts bumping her slightly. We had the same set up as last week with the lines on the snaffle ring going to me and the long lines on the bottom ring of the butterfly for Michelle just in case.
I climbed in and we set off. The first trotting set wasn't nearly so anxiety-inducing as last time. We did it several times to the left before turning around and heading right. She wanted to dive in a little on the long side next to Michelle's stalls, but nothing terrible. I had her hold the trot the full long side and even got to the point where we were carrying it into the turn slightly. We also started asking for a more forward trot and had some nice moments of rhythmic swinging of her hips as well as the singletree and nice, staccato "clangs" from the heel chains striking the singletree and cart.
We shifted gears for our cooldown period and did some large turns followed by a small figure eight. She offered a surprising amount of cross-over and I worried briefly about taking out the jump we were going around she would come so sharp! It was in a balanced, carrying way, however, not a falling-over-and-diving manner.
To end we even ventured to drive out of the arena and parked Z in front of the truck. She was a little suprised to get bumped by the cart as it went over the ridge that keeps Michelle's irrigation from wandering, but handled it as well as any. I will wait before trying to drive her between the truck and the road just yet so we still had to drag the cart around the rig.
I may drag the doubletree again before Saturday, but I would like to ride her a couple times before then as I think it has been two weeks since I threw the saddle on as I wanted to focus on squashing the hiccup as we can't have bucking in the shafts!
I didn't have time Friday or Saturday for her (Saturday had two hours working with some girl scouts, which is always a mixture of fun and entertaining with a good sprinkle of mild chaos) so despite Chris being off Monday I took some time to work her in the evening (on our first 110° day of course!). I think this is the first time since Tristan was born that I have taken "me" horse time while Chris is home. And at that I spent just over an hour on grooming, tacking, working, and then feeding and watering the herd for the evening.
I worked Z walk-trot-canter pulling the doubletree and I think she is pretty much through the clanging noise thing as is evidenced by our session today.
Zetahra warmed up nicely. Michelle had suggested changing it up more, doing some rollbacks into the canter and trotting turns as well as jumps in gear changes (halt to trot, canter to halt, walk to canter, etc.) Because when Z gets bored she tunes out and starts looking for something to do/react to.
As with last week we hooked her straight up after the warm-up. She stood still nicely even with the shafts bumping her slightly. We had the same set up as last week with the lines on the snaffle ring going to me and the long lines on the bottom ring of the butterfly for Michelle just in case.
I climbed in and we set off. The first trotting set wasn't nearly so anxiety-inducing as last time. We did it several times to the left before turning around and heading right. She wanted to dive in a little on the long side next to Michelle's stalls, but nothing terrible. I had her hold the trot the full long side and even got to the point where we were carrying it into the turn slightly. We also started asking for a more forward trot and had some nice moments of rhythmic swinging of her hips as well as the singletree and nice, staccato "clangs" from the heel chains striking the singletree and cart.
We shifted gears for our cooldown period and did some large turns followed by a small figure eight. She offered a surprising amount of cross-over and I worried briefly about taking out the jump we were going around she would come so sharp! It was in a balanced, carrying way, however, not a falling-over-and-diving manner.
To end we even ventured to drive out of the arena and parked Z in front of the truck. She was a little suprised to get bumped by the cart as it went over the ridge that keeps Michelle's irrigation from wandering, but handled it as well as any. I will wait before trying to drive her between the truck and the road just yet so we still had to drag the cart around the rig.
I may drag the doubletree again before Saturday, but I would like to ride her a couple times before then as I think it has been two weeks since I threw the saddle on as I wanted to focus on squashing the hiccup as we can't have bucking in the shafts!