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| A hack before the rest of the snow storm showed up and dropped another 5 inches. |
Good news everybody! We survived the snowpocalypse! What an unbelievably rough few weeks we have had here in North Carolina. There was almost a foot of snow on the ground for nearly a week! Even the covered arena had a good solid three inches of snow in it. Needless to say, not a lot of riding has been done this month. Nevertheless, Roanie has been phenomenal for the rides we have gotten in. We also managed to get a saddle fitter to come out in between the blizzards to fit Roan. She now has a sparkling new Albion dressage saddle and no excuse to be a witch when I tack her up (she still is though, we're working on that... Mares...) During our rides lately we have been focusing on down transitions, mostly from the trot to the walk, as she is perfect coming down from the canter to the trot. From the trot to the walk she likes to throw her head up and get "stuck" with her legs. Basically we lose all connection as well as impulsion and engagement from her hind end. We are working on keeping her hind end muscles relaxed. When she tenses her hind end she is physically unable to stay in the bridle, keep moving in a forward manner, and transition to the walk all at the same time. She literally needs to unclench her butt cheeks and relax. It gets better every day and we now have several good transitions, mixed in with a heaping amount of bad transitions, each ride. Progress! It's so exciting to see.
I also had a wonderful opportunity this month to attend the Western Dressage Association of America Train the Trainers clinic (what a mouthful.) Lisa and I spent a wonderful 3 days at the agriculture center in Lumberton learning about teaching and judging Western Dressage. It's always scary going to a clinic where fifty trainers from different disciplines congregate and spend three days in one classroom trying to agree on a single subject, but everyone was very friendly and expressed their views, training methods, thoughts, and concerns in a helpful and insightful way. I learned so much and got to spend a lot of time talking with all sorts of horse trainers from all over the country. It was a very cool, but exhausting, three days!
