Today was one of those magic days.
Do you all remember those little puzzles we had as kids where you slide the tiles around until all the numbers are in order? Yesterday, at the very end of my ride, one of the numbers slid into place for Grail. I got my first round, soft, trot-canter transition, the kind a judge would give an 8. I looked around hoping someone saw it. Grail was brilliant. Of course Jenn was 30 yards away, doing something else. If no one sees your perfect transition, did it really happen? I went straight to the stretchy trot circle, gave him a mint and took him on a nice walk.
Landry has a lesson at 5pm today, but I just couldn’t wait to see if Grail had retained anything from yesterday. So I went out to ride at 9. Two trips to the barn is so inefficient it gives me hives. The things I could be doing with the extra 2 hours provided by combining our rides into one trip!!!!! But I really wanted to ride my horse and not have half my attention on the kid. Listening to Jenn teach Landry is a big benefit of Boot Camp. I need to bring the sage advice home so that I can put it on a repeat loop. Oh, and it is going to be 90 degrees by 5pm.
Today I got THREE beautiful trot-canter transition to the left (the downward transitions are still a bit rough). I also got MANY lovely walk-trot-walk transitions. The kind that are addictive. Ten steps walk, ten steps sitting trot, ten steps walk. Soft back, soft jaw. Losing the track on the circle, but the endorphin release of just having my hands up and together and using my seat and my legs and watching Grail’s ears stay floppy. One hundred percent worth the hives caused by two trips to the barn.
PC: Lisa Madren