Tennis is another of my hobbies and I played in a tournament over the weekend. Not having played singles competitively (if I ever did) for quite some time, this wasn't the smartest move on my part. I had to play Friday night and squeaked out a win which only meant I had to play Saturday at noon. Ranae was on a girl's weekend and would be home on Sunday morning. There was a horse show at the fairgrounds I was hoping to at least stop by, and, to start my Saturday morning our TiVo took a dump, so I had to figure out what I was going to do about that.
The tennis match was at noon. I lost this one, thankfully, because most of my body parts were hurting and it was hot. It had to be in the high eighties. Anyway, I showered and headed to the fairgrounds. They were doing a trail class, which I watched for about 40 minutes. Boy, those horses move slow. Then, back across town to get the TiVo replacement.
By the time I got home it was 4:30. I gave the horses some hay and went in to get me something to eat. Got Jessie's GW done and tacked up. Instead of going out alone, I was still sore and tired from my earlier exertions, we went out back to do some exercises. After a little warm-up, I set the cone up in the middle and trotted the four-leaf clover exercise. We've done this exercise pretty good at the trot. We've done ONE revolution at the lope in each direction, but that's had to be two months ago (I'd know for sure if I tagged my blog entries). So Jessie has "done" it, but she didn't really have it completely down. With all the loping we've done in the past few weeks I was anxious to see how she would react. She did pretty darn good. We went around three times in each direction. A couple of times her circles got a bit out of whack, but for the most part she turned when I asked her (that had been the biggest problem) and she kept her speed relaxed.
Sunday's ride was nicely quiet. We went out to the big square we erected last weekend and trotted a square and then loped, only this time we did a circle around each corner. By now the few remaining body parts that had not been sore decided to speak up so we headed home. We had ridden a couple of hours and once again it was fairly warm out, so when we got home they got a a bath and we sat in the garden sipping adult beverages.
Showing posts with label square. Show all posts
Showing posts with label square. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
A Different Perspective
Opps. I just hit post, so it's going to show up empty until I post this....
Saturday afternoon's ride was a couple of hours. It has cooled down considerably and there was actually a little bit of frost on the ground early in the morning. The horses were fresh and we did some trotting. We went the reverse direction we usually go to change things up. They both behaved quite well even thought the wind was blowing and there were many "scary" things.
We were trying to decide what we wanted to work on. Sometimes it's just nice to go out and do nothing, but we have a commitment to at least TRY something to keep it interesting for the horses. We worked our way to one of our regular stomping grounds and found a nice open area. I got off and grabbed a couple of plastic pipe ends that were laying around and we made a big rectangle. It was at least 30 yards on the long side and probably 15 yards on the short. Ranae and I started on diagonal corners and the goal was to lope the rectangle which meant picking up the correct lead, trying to keep our horse loping around the corners, and then traveling straight. Both horses did a very good job. Jessie was good at picking up the correct lead. She took some pretty wide turns, and going straight down the long sides was a bit of a challenge. However, on the second lap I could see a light bulb come on and she seemed to have realized the goal. The third lap was pretty good. Going the other direction was a breeze. As soon as we made the first turn she made the connection and the three laps in that direction were very easy. I could work on my seat and leg position without worrying too much which direction she was going.
Sunday morning was pretty chilly so we worked around the house and waited until the afternoon. We headed down the canal that runs next to the feedlot and asked the horses to go by the cows. It's pretty scary seeing all those black and whites running around. We got by and did a long loop and on the way back there were a couple of men out there with a stick and plastic bag moving the calves. This was very scary looking and took a bit more coercing to get them by. After we passed them we did a little approach and retreat to the cows until both of them were relaxed.
On the way home Dusty walks....so....very....slow that I find it a bit annoying. In the wind (it was still breezy) you really can't hear unless you're right next to each other. I told Ranae that I thought Dusty walked faster for me when we went out alone a month ago. She said it probably just seemed that way, so I suggested we switch horses and see. She said ok, which kinda surprised me. It's very interesting to see someone else on my horse. It's actually very good to get a new perspective. Dusty is pretty easy to ride, but I couldn't really get him to go much faster. I also had to deal with her split reins instead of my mecate. We did some trotting side-by-side and she even loped Jessie a little bit. She was pretty amazed at the size of Jessie's trot (it's pretty much all I know). We had fun all the way home driving each others' ride.
Saturday afternoon's ride was a couple of hours. It has cooled down considerably and there was actually a little bit of frost on the ground early in the morning. The horses were fresh and we did some trotting. We went the reverse direction we usually go to change things up. They both behaved quite well even thought the wind was blowing and there were many "scary" things.
We were trying to decide what we wanted to work on. Sometimes it's just nice to go out and do nothing, but we have a commitment to at least TRY something to keep it interesting for the horses. We worked our way to one of our regular stomping grounds and found a nice open area. I got off and grabbed a couple of plastic pipe ends that were laying around and we made a big rectangle. It was at least 30 yards on the long side and probably 15 yards on the short. Ranae and I started on diagonal corners and the goal was to lope the rectangle which meant picking up the correct lead, trying to keep our horse loping around the corners, and then traveling straight. Both horses did a very good job. Jessie was good at picking up the correct lead. She took some pretty wide turns, and going straight down the long sides was a bit of a challenge. However, on the second lap I could see a light bulb come on and she seemed to have realized the goal. The third lap was pretty good. Going the other direction was a breeze. As soon as we made the first turn she made the connection and the three laps in that direction were very easy. I could work on my seat and leg position without worrying too much which direction she was going.
Sunday morning was pretty chilly so we worked around the house and waited until the afternoon. We headed down the canal that runs next to the feedlot and asked the horses to go by the cows. It's pretty scary seeing all those black and whites running around. We got by and did a long loop and on the way back there were a couple of men out there with a stick and plastic bag moving the calves. This was very scary looking and took a bit more coercing to get them by. After we passed them we did a little approach and retreat to the cows until both of them were relaxed.
On the way home Dusty walks....so....very....slow that I find it a bit annoying. In the wind (it was still breezy) you really can't hear unless you're right next to each other. I told Ranae that I thought Dusty walked faster for me when we went out alone a month ago. She said it probably just seemed that way, so I suggested we switch horses and see. She said ok, which kinda surprised me. It's very interesting to see someone else on my horse. It's actually very good to get a new perspective. Dusty is pretty easy to ride, but I couldn't really get him to go much faster. I also had to deal with her split reins instead of my mecate. We did some trotting side-by-side and she even loped Jessie a little bit. She was pretty amazed at the size of Jessie's trot (it's pretty much all I know). We had fun all the way home driving each others' ride.
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