Wizard Ride 263: Break My Stride

Saturday, 7/30/11

Remembering how energetic Wizard was on our last ride, I turned him out in the big arena before our ride on Saturday. Although he gets lots of turnout every day, he seems to thoroughly enjoy really stretching his legs from time to time. More than any horse I know, he runs for the joy of running, ears up, in big loops.

After his playtime, I tacked him up and we rode in the indoor arena. The sun was strong and I like to rotate arenas when possible. I decided to keep a little more contact than usual. When he’s really relaxed, he can ride on the buckle, but the contact on the bit helps our communication and gets him balanced. It seemed like it was a really good idea- Wizard was much more responsive and balanced than he was in our last ride.

We began with a walking warmup, followed by trotting first on the long sides and then working into shapes- shallow serpentines, figure 8s, circles. We worked into some shoulder-in and leg yield in both directions. I incorporated a little turn on the forehand and we are beginning the first few steps of turn on the haunches.

Once our trot work was limber and forward, we got to the canter work. Wizard was still hot, but not even half as hot as he was in our last ride. I went right back to our exercise assignment: simple changes. I asked him to walk in the center of each change in order to really get him thinking and slowing down instead of rushing into the next canter (me too!). He very easily breaks his stride in both upward and downward transitions if my timing is poor or if I rush him. There was some resistance, but also some significant improvement. My timing is getting better and his transitions are getting stronger.