A Delightful Ride

Yesterday, our temperature just brushed 40F, and by the time I brought the horses in and fed in the afternoon, we were in the upper 30sF. But there was only a little bit of wind and the sun was still bright, and Maisie and I got in a very good ride. I was glad about that, as I didn't get to ride Thursday due to the wind and cold, and I usually don't get to ride on the weekend because of other time commitments.

We started in the arena, with some walk and trot work on light contact - she was relaxed and stretching down and moving well. Then we did more trot work, using the whole ring and doing frequent changes of direction at the rising trot. Then we moved into some sitting trot where I was asking her to use herself a bit and using my inside leg into outside rein to ask her to soften and bend. We did a lot more patterns using our cones - this time I had set them in two staggered parallel lines for some variation - Maisie stood and waited for me at one end of the ring and watched with interest as I moved cones around - I never really trained her to do this but she does it nicely when I ask. Finally, just for fun and because she was going so well, we moved nicely up into the canter, and did several large circles in each direction. Her departures were good, even though I wasn't really asking her to use herself as she isn't fit yet, and she nicely maintained the canter until I asked her to trot. Her left lead canter, which has always been a little bit harder for her, was even pretty good. For just coming off the winter, this is all excellent work.

Finally, we went on a short trail ride. She was excellent, relaxed, interested and responsive. I must say, all in all, it was a delightful ride!