Storm / Hurricane and Riding Update

We canceled our Labour Day weekend dressage show and clinic yesterday because of Hurricane Earl. I was looking forward to riding in the clinic on Mon. with the judge John MacPherson. He is a level 3 dressage coach.

The hurricane forecast sounds a little better, but still nothing is certain. It is currently forecast to hit the counties in the southern part of the Province as a hurricane and the rest of the Province as a tropical storm.

I rode Rogo bareback for awhile last night, for the first time. He didn't really know what to make of that. He was a little surprised when I hopped on and then for the first time in a few weeks, was very forward. When we trotted he was a little naughty in that he didn't want to steer or stop, which is hard when you don't have stirrups! How did he know? Why did he react this way? Who knows. I aborted my plan of a bareback canter! I put his saddle on and we went back to work.

We had some great canters - he is getting much better balance and as he is holding his canter without so much effort on my part I'm learning to relax and move with him better - sort of a chicken and egg thing. This translates into big, bounding strides which I love! Good bye flat, racey canter (I hope).

We also practiced some sitting trot. I want to start this now so I'll have it by level one. His trot is much bigger than I'm used to. I do about 8 to 10 steps of sitting, then rising before I start to bounce, then back to sitting. The bareback was supposed to help with this too, but maybe we'll need to do that on the longe for now :).