Selena Ride 6: The Wizard Walk

Monday, 8/3/09

I hand walked Wizard for about 25 minutes and grazed him for about 25 minutes. I also turned him loose in the indoor arena for just a few minutes so I could see how he was moving- looking good! So far, the rest/hand-walking therapy is working well. My mom commented on what a HUGE walk Wizard has. It is positively lovely to ride his walk under saddle. I am a speedy walker and I can barely keep up with him when we hand walk. The hand walking is a workout for everyone :^)

The only odd thing I saw was a sweat pattern on Wizard’s flanks. He was totally cool and dry everywhere else, but after he was in his stall for about 45 minutes, he had sweat just in the flank area and between his hind legs. Everything else was totally 100% normal. He ate, drank, etc and I saw absolutely nothing else out of the ordinary. I’ll keep an eye on it. Perhaps it was a bug bite?

My mom went out to the barn with me and took some photos of our ride. I started with two laps in each direction at a hand walk, then two in each direction under saddle at a walk on a loose rein. I worked on leg yields in both directions. Here’s a photo of a leg yield. Selena is cooperating but I dropped the ball and I’m sitting crooked, which is making her crooked. But she’s crossing over with her hind leg, which is cool :^)

We worked on shoulder-in, large circles, and a few serpentines. We picked up a trot and trotted about 3 laps around in each direction. Selena thought one of my leg cues was a canter request so she picked up a canter. Because she was so forward and “on” my leg, I let her canter for about a quarter of the arena. I plan to keep taking things slowly, but it sure was fun to canter her. I have done a lot of slow work under saddle lately so the canter was refreshing. I asked for a large circle at the trot. Selena was forward and bracing a little with her neck. My goal is to ask her to relax and strengthen her topline and neck and we’re slowly achieving that goal. I felt it a few times while we trotted. We walked a little bit, halted, and I dismounted. Good girl!