Riding success!

So who rode horses over the weekend?  Who made sure ALL horses were ridden over the weekend?  That would be me!  After the lapses I have been having, getting a leasee who is required to ride with me present for the first 30 days has rebooted my riding schedule and I have successfully ridden every day since Wednesday.  Yay me!  It is good timing too, as Mia's show is this upcoming weekend and I am not even close to stressing about it.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were dressage rides, Mia is doing SO much better than even at our last show.  As I was talking to RB4 I said I think that Mia plateaued around early summer where she "got it" but decided she didn't really want to do the work so she wasn't.  That was the timeframe that I finally broke down and put the draw reins on her to force her to submit, accept contact and cooperate better.  Once we got over that hump, things have been getting steadily better and I haven't used draw reins in months!  Mia is MUCH more consistent in the contact, especially at the trot and canter, she is MUCH more balanced in the canter and she isn't regularly fighting me.  Yay!

Saturday K and I went for K's first ride outside, we first rode around the pasture and then around the short loop.  TWH was, of course, awesome and Mia is doing better.  She is still very looky and spooked pretty hard at an empty trailer that rattled by us but I think TWH's calmness helped her and she quieted down quickly.  We rode most of the loop at a trot and I even cantered Mia a little and she was awesome.  She didn't try to run off, she kept the speed I asked and did well in her transitions.  My girl is growing up!  K was very impressed with TWH and loved that she still had as much control in the hackamore than she did with a bit, she had never ridden with a hackamore and was slightly nervous.  She said she is really falling for TWH, she talks about him nonstop apparently.  I am glad she is working out so well, TWH  really isn't ready for retirement and I think he will do well with her.

Before K left on Saturday K said she wanted to jump on Sunday, no problem.  Except I have 1 jumping saddle and am NOT ready to jump Mia bareback so we can't jump together.  I got up early and had RB4 come over and I jumped Mia.  We started out small and Mia is rocking jumps.  She is picking up her canter (with correct leads) effortlessly now and is starting to listen to my cues as we approach jumps.  In no time we bumped the jump up to a 2'6" oxer and Mia was doing good.  At one point Mia came at it and she wouldn't make the distance at a 3 stride.  I applied leg and Mia responded, she opened her stride and got it in 2.  That was amazing, it was the very first time she has responded to my request to change her striding before a jump!!

We bumped the oxer up to 3 foot, the second time she has ever gone that high under saddle.  The first time she jumped at that height had mixed success, she had a hard time not knocking poles down.  This time she brought the fence down a single time when we messed up the striding and couldn't get out of it but there was no refusal (YAY!) and once RB4 put it back up Mia went over it like it was a 2'6" jump.  It is amazing how small she makes the jumps feel, love!

Later in the day K came out to jump TWH so I hopped on my App to give him a workout.  I grabbed the dressage whip but apparently it wasn't needed.  App was very good and did really nice shoulders in/haunches in, 10m circles, serpentines and balanced canters without fighting.  It was so cool to ride him and not fight with him, I miss that.  App has so many talents that hasn't been used in a long while, if I keep this up maybe I can get him worked regularly again.  I even put him over the 18" crossrail and while he was way overjumping it, he still jumped and cleared it and seemed to enjoy it.

K jumped TWH and fell in love all over again.  She repeatedly missed her stride but the biggest jump was a little 2'3" vertical and TWH had absolutely no problem figuring out how to get over it no mater where he was placed.  He is SUCH a good horse :)  I will have her jump probably once more before the Saturday and on Saturday both K and I are going cross country schooling in preparation for our show on Sunday.

Such a long update, I haven't had this much to talk about and also time to write about it in a long time!  I am hoping for pics on Saturday, stay tuned.  Speaking of updates, have you seen achieve1dream's 5 year anniversary contest?  It is the 5 year anniversary of her getting Chrome and she is doing a giveaway.  Hoping to win the Eventing license plate!!  http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/2014/10/five-year-anniversary-first-ever.html