Training Update

Happy V-Day everyone!

Firstly, a sincere Happy Valentines Day to all my blog readers. May your day and weekend be filled with love and goodies.

I realize I haven't given a training update in quite some time.

My trainer Laurie is all healed up from her shoulder replacement surgery so we are finally back to our 2-lesson-per-week schedule: dressage on a weekday evening and jumping on Saturday morning/mid-day. She isn't quite back to riding yet, but that will be soon.

Unfortunately my fall at the show has turned out out to be a major pain-in-the-ass injury. Literally. My right hip and upper buttock/lower back have really hurt for almost 2 full weeks. It took 6 days for a bruise to show up, and let me tell ya - its a doozy. It's giant and black and now migrating from my side to my back, which is interesting in an alarming sort of way. Riding was painful so I had TK ride Hemie last weekend. I finally rode last night with minimal pain, though based on my strange leg soreness today I must have been compensating somehow.

My lesson last night was the first dressage lesson since the show, and it was very positive. We are working on improved and *consistent* connection and throughness throughout the ride, and most especially when he wants to be a little looky-loo at shadows or whatnot. Without riding a more experienced dressage horse in quite some time, it's hard to know what I'm really asking for in terms of the contact and feel in the reins. Hemie has such a light mouth in general, that Laurie articulated the idea of having him feel slightly like he's pulling on the reins at all times. That was an aha! moment for sure.

In looking over our videos again (links here: dressage, stadium jumping, cross country) I am feeling very good about our jumping overall. While I am very proud of our improvement in dressage (no shenanigans! woot!), our performance is still far below the level of work we get at home. I'm thinking about entering some dressage-only shows to get more dressage show mileage and really see if we can get better work done.

For this V-day weekend I leave you with my horse and his boyfriend:

Phoenix and Hemie sitting in a tree...K.I.S.S.I.N.G.