Should have seen this coming!

Well, I was so busy this past week/ weekend I left Henry to his own devices for four days. There was a pretty bad snow squall/ deep freeze Sunday to Monday, so when I went out to the barn last night, I expected to spend a little longer on warming up, but boy oh boy I was surprised at him!

I had to wait about 15 minutes to actually put his tack on and get out in the ring because there were three horses already out there - and one was doing a jumping lesson. I had an interesting discussion in the tack room with two other boarders about various H/J trainers we knew and had worked with (or in my case, worked for). It is a teeny tiny small world up here. Yikes. I had better keep things like that in mind and keep working on spreading good karma!

When I got into the ring he was totally subdued; he stood like a statue while I got on, and then we walked around on the buckle and he put his head down. I did some light trot work to get him warmed up quicker, and then when I tried to put him together he got antsy. I was still trying hard to work on keeping my position, which includes keeping my leg on. We still haven't gotten to the point where my legs can stay on and he'll listen to my seat and upper body to stay slow and relaxed. He got a little upset and picked up the canter a couple of times - I swear I could have done some lovely pirouettes with that canter! He wasn't going anywhere fast, just didn't think I wanted a slow trot.

Then things got interesting. He was getting worried because of my legs. I kept trying to push my shoulders back and put my hands forward. He can go BIG when he feels like it, but when I tried to hold him back, and actually make turns, he started to pogo-trot. I worked on transitions - trot-walk, walk-halt, halt-trot, trot-halt. That was okay. We took a short break. Back into the trot and when I tried to sit and slow him down, he actually let out a few (tiny) bucks and into canter. Okay then!

Apparently I should have longed for a while before I got on, but I was already strapped for time. We worked on some more transitions and I mainly stuck to posting the trot, and he gave me some nice moments towards the end of our almost hour-long ride. Hopefully since it is about 35-40 today, instead of 15-20 like last night, this won't be the sort of ride I have for my lesson tonight.

I was also having a really hard time with my right seat bone. For the life of me, I can't seem to keep it where I want it. Maybe this has something to do with driving a lot - using my right leg more to step on the pedals? I need to get back to the gym more often and do yoga and pilates at home, as I have done in the past. The weather and shortness of days make me loathe to do much more than curl up with a good book, and I usually don't get to the barn and the gym on the same day. Given the choice, I would go out to the barn. But, it looks like I need to dedicate some more time to working on MY body, before I ask Henry to work on his. Hopefully by springtime we will both have much more toned bums!