Flatwork

So I missed out on the gorgeous weather of Friday to do any riding due to a serious headache that had me curling up in the dark under covers. And then yesterday it was raining and icky. But today, though chilly and windy....was nice and sunny. So I went down to the farm to use the 'dressage' arena I had put together last Sunday out of jump standards, traffic cones, and 49 cent letter stickers from Tractor Supply. Oh, and some of the landscape timbers we use as jump poles. I could not for the life of me to get B and E to properly line up on their respective vertical lines and I gave up. I apparently can't see straight lines or something, I don't even know. Anyway, it ended up being approximately 20 meters by 40 meters so that was fine. I also was careful to leave some room around the whole thing so none of it was directly next to the fence so we didn't have that to lean on.

Today I just set my camera on a post that had a pretty wide view of almost the whole thing (though it occurs to me now I might have done better putting it closer to A but oh well, maybe next time if I'm not able to get a lesson tomorrow) and just let it take video as I rode. Pictures below are screencaps from that and then the videos were a couple I cut out of the big video to show so you're not having to watch the whole thing.

After warming up, we did some trotting circles (I'm proud to say our circles are way better than what they once were) and a lot of figures, going across the diagonal, up from K to E and across to B then up to M and around to create a big figure 8 basically. Some cantering all the way around the ring, then a bit of 20 meter circles cantering too (and let me tell you how amazing that is, I once was convinced we'd never be able to do that).

Did some nice trotting where I let the reins out for him to stretch and also a tiny bit of riding without stirrups at the trot. Finally, just before I cooled him out, I let him really stretch out at the canter and go, because the whole time he'd really been asking me to let him go more.

Okay...pictures!


Nice square halt from a trot.


He looks like he's using himself well at this trot, huh?


You wanted an uphill canter, right?


Extended canter at the end.


Coming over to turn off the camera.


What's this? Can I eat it?


And the closest I've gotten to a confo shot in a while.

Videos!


Basically what the title says, trotting 20 meter circles.


Cantering around the arena to the right, then turning around and going to the left and after he relaxes a bit instead of being all strong on me, we do a canter circle. :)