8/30/13

Harley - dressage. Side rein warm up followed by a 30 minute ride. 

He started out stiff, as I expected, but submissive.  The trot work was nice - I should have done more serpentines and less circles, but I worked on circles to straight lines, back to circles.  Just a couple leg yields at trot, and they were decent. 

Knowing I didn't feel 100%, I chose *one* thing to work on.  Transitions.  Lots and LOTS of them.  Walk/halt/walk, walk/trot/walk, trot/canter/trot.  Walk/halt/walk took the most work, in both directions.  I'll be doing that again today.  Walk/trot/walk was really nice, for the most part.  Trot/canter/trot need work, and I already knew that, especially left side.  He throws his head up to the left, but stays pretty quiet to the right. 

Got through the whole ride in my cool vest without incident or troubles.  Quite tired by the time we were done, but I expected that.  What I didn't expect was after the ride in the rest of my day.

No matter what I did, I was easily winded, and tired.  Running the vacuum cleaner, short of breath.  Washing Charlie, short of breath.  Standing in the dog wash with the sun beating down on me, sweat pouring, heart pounding.  Showering and getting ready for a concert last night - heart pounding, short of breath.  Absolutely no good reason for it, other than tired.  Late night last night as well, but I'm going to give it my best effort this morning and schedule some rest this afternoon. 

Today, We'll try again.  I'm headed to change for the ride.  Harley, hunter.  Unless I can convince R to set the saddle up on Mo, he'll have to wait another day.  I just don't know how I'm going to get back into riding both - Mo's endurance saddle is SO heavy, and that act of tossing it up on his back gives me the chills.  That's the last thing my heart and chest need right now. 

C'mon Harley.. Let's ride, see how we can tackle some ground poles again.  :-)