The temperature climbed all the way to 40 today, but Pro wasn't impressed. Apparently Arabians should neither be expected to walk through water or ride when it's below 50. I'm pretty sure deserts get darn cold at night, but try telling that to him. He did his evasions in the opposite order for me (chicken llama then rushing) but for the first time since Christmas I actually felt semi in control of him despite that. The chicken llama I countered first by lots of leg yields and quarter-pirouettes at the walk to get him listening to my leg (while keeping my hands up) and then I opened my hands wider to funnel him forward. I'm pretty sure I should have funneled first, because that finally got his head down. Once his head was in a workable position I worked on plugging in my seat bones at the walk and his back rounded up under me and he'd reach across and down with his head. I kept us at the walk to keep things simple, but did push him and ask for calm, even figure-8's where he didn't get to revert to a chicken llama because, omg, we're walking in the other direction in a different part of the ring! We quit when we could do a figure-8 with 20m circles staying stretched down and softly chewing for both circles.
Hopefully Kate and I can arrange tag-teaming tomorrow and I can try out the nifty new camera to get some more pictures.
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5 comments:
Haha, Pro sounds like such a character. Seems like you had a successful ride and ended on a high note -- good for you! Looking forward to seeing those pictures!
I'm impressed you're riding in this freezing weather at all!
He tries to convince us of a lot of things...alllllllways trying to play the victim!
Glad it worked out that we could have a tag-team day and simultaneously address all of his weird little issues.
Glad you got out and rode!
Good for you for riding in the cold. I am finding that I am not handling the extreme cold much better than I handle the extreme heat! I used to be able to handle the cold better. It is still better than the extreme heat and humidity, though.
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