Last Ride of 2016

The last three weeks of 2016 were mostly blah in terms of riding until the last two days of the year.  We had a snow/ice storm along with days of temps in the 30s, then I went do to Mexico for Christmas.  When I got back, our first few rides were not so great.  Peebs would alternate between stubbornly lazy and all over the place forward.  He had forgotten all the work we had done lately in regards to bend and balance and while I tried not to hold it against him (with the whole two weeks off thing) I was frustrated.


Friday I gave him a nice long free lunge in the indoor and while I was expected a buck or three, he just ran a bunch.  I got on, and voila, I had my normal Peebers back.  I also had an "a-ha" moment while cantering to the right.  Apparently, if you pick up on your outside rein and bump your horse with it every two to three strides instead of letting it hang like a dead fish, your horse can stay straight and not counter bend?!?  Our right lead canter has been our biggest issue lately and while we have success when I'm in a lesson and someone's telling me the above info, it hadn't translated to riding on my own till then.  And now I feel like an idiot. I swear I know how to ride.

Peebs says really mom?

Saturday we had a lesson and since we hadn't jumped in almost three weeks I was a little apprehensive on how it would go.  But I shouldn't have worried.  Peebs came to play and was great.  We still have issues going right, and will always, but the help of some placing poles and the knowledge of needing to use my outside rein, we got our nicest jumps tracking right.  He really wants to counter bend and drift left, and it's going to take time to get rid of the muscle memory, but he got better with every time through.  Trainer said we're to keep using the placing poles for the next few weeks, just to reinforce that he has to stay straight and can't go left.

Our last ride of 2016 ended on a high note. #wecanonlycantertotheleft #totheleft #jumpingfencestrackingrightishard #welovecounterbend

A video posted by Molly Basney (@mollybasney) on Dec 31, 2016 at 12:30pm PST

We were also able to canter fences (tracking left) and actually put them together.  Trainer wants us to just trot fences going right till he's a little more consistent about them. You'll recall cantering fences is very hard for us.  So the fact that we could canter two fences in a row, nice and quietly, was amazing.  And I wasn't even that nervous!  It was a perfect way to end 2016!