So, after the disaster that was two weekends ago I went out on Tuesday night to hack Arwen. The plan was a lot of flatwork, with ground poles to work on some of the rideability issues we had. Felt fine at the walk and trot, and cantering on the right lead, but as soon as I picked up the left lead, something felt off. She wasn't lame, but it also wasn't the usual canter. Just kind of shorter in step, bouncier, and she was pulling slightly. Figured she would work out of it, which she kind of did, and then we went to do a left to right lead change. And she missed it. She hasn't missed a lead change in awhile, so I was a little miffed. She isn't an auto changer by any means, but if you set her up decently enough all it usually takes is just sliding that outside leg back and she'll change. I decided to not school it, since that wasn't really my focus for the day. Set up some ground poles and she was fabulous going right, but then pretty horrendous going left. Doing the same thing to me of bearing down on the bit and just charging around, unbalanced and not really listening. Called it quits after trotting over it a couple times because it was getting dark.
I left the arena pretty discouraged at this point. Oh, and she was also super spooky that night. I get off her and start to groom her, and notice there seems to be a bunch of dried mud on the inside of her left hock. The lighting in the crossties isn't the best, so I started currying it to get it off. Arwen jerks her leg up and proceeds to give me the look of death. I stop, and pull off a piece of the "mud" and realize its not mud, but blood. She has about a three inch long scratch on her leg, that had apparently been there for at least a day from the looks of it. I clean it up with a little water, and then put some silver sulfadene on it and text my trainer that its possible she was horrendous because her left hock is a little sore.
Next day, trainer tells me she definitely feels she's favoring that leg, doesn't feel normal, so she just walks her around and has the groom clean it up. Tells me I'm still on for my lesson the next day. I come out there the following day and holy cow, Arwen's leg has blown up like a balloon. So now, she's on antibotics and taking ANOTHER little vacation. I swear, I don't know how this horse does these things to herself.
In the meantime, I've ridden some other horses. Rode Ready on Thursday (who I fell off of, due to my old standby habit of not seeing a distance, and throwing myself and my reins at the horse's head. They of course can't save me, so they stop and I go flying. Second time I've done that in two weeks), then rode a horse named Valentine on Friday, and Goldi on Saturday. All very different horses, which challenged me. A lot. Ready is good for me mostly because he reminds me to keep my leg on at all times. If I don't he sputters out. And he is usually not a stopper, but the fences were at 3ft and poor guy...he can only do so much to save me when we're running at a jump all disorganized. Valentine was good because she's a little like Arwen, just not as sane. So similar ride, but her brain seems to get a little more frazzled than Arwen, so does require a slightly more tactful ride. At one point after some nice trotting flat work, I asked her to canter which she did, and then proceeded to start bucking. So I got off, trainer had her lunged, got back on, and did some small jumps which went great. She's a fun little horse. Goldi was polar opposite from everything I've ridden. Doesn't want you in his face, and is super squiggly and quick to move off your leg. At one point we were weaving back and forth as I was trying to figure out the correct leg pressure. He also carries himself pretty well, and with decent pace, so it was really weird to not have much contact with his face. Totally different jump too, he definitely jumps "up" to the rider, and is much slower over fences, versus Arwen who gets a little fast/flat over the smaller stuff.
All in all though, the rides were okay. The definitely showed some major weaknesses in my riding though, which is both good and bad. Good because it gives me more stuff I need to work on, and bad because HOLY HELL am I ever going to be able to ride? Of course, when I think like that I have to remind myself to take a step back and remember that I haven't really been riding that long.
As for fitness, I did manage to drag myself to CF three times last week. OH and I finally kind of managed a kipping PU. WITHOUT A BAND. And not just one, but two in a row! AND AND AND...did 9 DU's in a row. Pretty exciting stuff. Getting closer to that 6 month goal I set, which is nice. Still need to work on my diet/weight loss, but I'm fairly happy with things fitness wise. It feels really good to be getting back into the swing of things at CF.
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