After she left, I grabbed some granola bars for Dollar and headed out back. Quickly let the dogs loose and then went to grab SuperPony. Of course, he nickered when he saw me coming for him and was waiting at the gate for me to let him out. Got him out and then brought him and Sue up to the barn. Tied up Dollar and put Sue in the barn so that he wouldn't be in my way while me and D were practising our Dressage. Got to grooming Dollar (luckily, he wasn't as muddy as previous times) and loved it that his winterized tail is still in! Yeah!
After quickly tacking him up, I grabbed my 101 Dressage Excersises book and decided to start right at the beginning. I know because of Dollar's previous history with shows, that we probably could start further into the exercises, but because I'm new at this (and so is he), I figured that the beginning would be a good place to start.
We started by warming up at the walk, jog and trot. Of course, while we were on the rail warming up, Mars was sticking hsi hed over to see what we were doing. And I noticed that his halter was over 1 ear and starting to come off. So I stopped Dollar, fixed Mars' halter and went back to business. Except a couple feet from where we stopped was hay on the ground from the manger in the holding pen. Well, as we started our warm-up again, Dollar decided to stretch down, stop and grab a good mouthful of hay. I asked him to keep walking, but he decided to ignore me. I gave him a good kick, and still...ignorant. So I had my crop in my hand. Guess what happened?? Yup. A good, loud smack right on the ass. And he jumped forward and realized that I meant business. Yes, he is stubborn and ignorant some days. Especially when there's food nearby.
Once we got our lazy butt moving (and I do mean MOVING) we did some more warm-up and then proceeded to start with the exercises. The first one was just doing a simple oval at an (somewhat) extended trot down the long sides and a regular trot on the short sides. Of course this ws very simple and easy for me and Dollar, but I figured "why not?" and did the exercise, but also added something in. As we were doing the short sides, I focused on getting his body to bend around my leg while we were doing the short sides. And it worked! Yeah! We went both ways for about 15 minutes and then moved onto exercise #2.
This one was doing a needlepoint. Basically you start out tracking right at a sitting trot, ride a teardrop (half volte) at B, returning to the track at M. Then proceed to a 15-meter circle at C. Ride another teardrop at E, returning to the track at H. Proceed to another 15-meter circle at C and repeat from step 1.
And it was easy-peasy!! He worked very nicely with me in what I was asking him to do, that it just felt so easy and light. Thankfully because of all our time training for Trail class, he moves off of my leg very nicely, which helped a lot for this exercise.
After we were done our exercises, I untacked him and then played around for a bit before putting him away. Hopefully I can get out soon again.
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