Monday, March 22, 2010

A Beautiful Weekend to Start Fitness Work!


Friday, Saturday and Sunday brought a perfect opportunity to begin fitness work with Zara and a little jumping with Zoomer! Friday, the perfect temperature allowed great rides on Zara, Zoomer and Coco(a pony I work at Worthmore) with a short hack for each. Zoomer went first, warming up fabulously with an extra bounce to his step at the opportunity to finally ride in the outdoor. After working for weeks and weeks, we decided it would be a good day to do some little jumps; the first jumping he has done in 5 months, since the injury! He of course was fabulous, jumping well balanced and in good stride as if he hadn't even had time off. Zara had a lesson on Friday, where we worked on dressage with Courtney Amritt Johnson. We focused on keeping her in a true frame, using her body but not leaning on my hands(my left on in particular) for support in her work. Her canter work was decent to the left, but sloppy to the right as she leaned heavily on my hand and was disrespectful to my legs.

Zara proved that she was just having a bad day throughout the rest of the weekend, as everyone went for trotting hacks out in the fields on Saturday. Sunday, fitness work for Zara began! She did trot sets of 15 minutes with 5 minutes of walk between 3 sets, along with two 2 minute gallop sets. By the end, we were finally happy with just trotting, instead of trying to go full speed all the time! I think I finally wore her out! Coco also did trot work and played in the nearby pond to become reaccustomed to overcoming water. Unfortunately, Zoomer must have been playing too hard or encountered something unpleasant, as his left eye was swollen and oozing a little. He didn't get to enjoy the beautiful day, but care was taken to heal the eye and he worked beautifully tonight in the indoor.

More beautiful weekends for Chestertown, please!!

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