Saturday 16 February 2013

hip stretching...

must find some good exercises!

anyway, i rode...

the first 15 minutes were excellent, lots of walk, circles, serpentines and so on....then i thought we'll go small circle (was thinking that exercise where you do 1 1/2 10 metre circles all the way round the arena....it's a good suppler...) and he stopped - whether he stopped because of something i did in the aiding, or stopped for some other reason i have no clue, but it was 20 minutes before i could get him going again....

he totally ignores whip tapping

I decided rather than persisting with whip tapping/leg aid/ for the time, i'd spend some time just getting the contact right and keep asking for it...

but interspersed with further attempts to get him moving..

eventually, he did and i pushed him on to a faster walk (TBH, rushing somewhat, but better than stopping) and to try some trot

the trot was pants... again, whether it him or me i'm not sure but there was no smoothness in it and he wouldn't/couldn't keep it going...

at which point i wanted someone on the ground, as i wasn't sure if he was sound or not - he'd been resting the near hind a lot when being groomed etc so not sure if he's twinged something - but he didn't feel lame in walk ...

but having got him moving again and done another ten minutes (assisted my confidence, if not a lot else!) i called that quits and got off - and oh my, my hips were well stretched and i knew about it!

i need to ride more!  anyway, lighter nights should help a lot on that front!

1 comment:

  1. Wow, it's not been a good horse day over there. (Just read Caroline's post.) Obviously Monfy was not as bad as Woody, but I wouldn't call his behavior very good either. He is certainly testing his boundaries.

    Hip stretching? One thing you can do is sit on the floor, bend your knee, and then gently push your leg towards the outside. This helps stretch the psoas muscle. Here's a link to pictures of some hip stretching exercises: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stretching/SM00043&slide=5

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