Very interesting ride over the weekend

 

I am having a really hard time figuring Lucy out. We went for a longish (probably a bit over 5 miles) ride considering she hasn’t been out much this last month.

 

I think Lucy has given up fighting me and just goes along with what I want. Its very strange and I really can’t figure it out.

 

She was her normal slow self going down our hill, I hate walking her down it as I know she dislikes it and I don’t think it is good for her to be walking downhill that much without a good warm up. But my trailer is still wired for the other truck so I rode from home.

Going up the other side of the valley was pretty normal, except that I really wanted Lucy to walk in the middle of the road now that she has boots. But she is just so used to walking on the side that she kept fighting me. Or her back feet were still hurting on the rocks.

 

So now on to the strange part. I rode down White House Canyon, which is a flat, chalky road. When I asked her to trot, she stayed trotting. She only tried to break to the walk, once or twice, and didn’t even try that hard.

So have I just pushed her so many times that she is done fighting me about? Now I kinda feel bad, even though this is what I wanted.

The only problem I had was that her trot was agonizingly slow, espeshally for her. I had a hard time posting to it and staying balanced.

I also trotted her up a good section of my road (which can be rather steep at times) and she did really good and just powered up it. No breathing problems or anything.

Strange.

So for now the plan is to ride every weekend (possible both days sometimes depending on what my rides are like) and ride as often as possible at home during the week working on flatwork kind of stuff.

Right now I am mostly working on half halts  and transitions. And a little bit of lateral work. I like to do turns on the hunches and forehand. Not so much as a dressage movement as much as teaching her to move her body in different ways. She understands what I want, but her head goes up like a giraffe whenever ask her to do either one. So I am working on her softening and listening to me more.

 

I still haven’t gotten to play with Georgie much yet. My sister and I took her and Ollie out to eat grass on Sunday and that was fun. I always pet and scratch her when I feed, which she seem to enjoy. If I take her out without Ollie though, she is just herd bound. Which of course means I need to do it as much as possible so she learns to see me as another of the herd.

 

Hopefully more updates on her soon!