checked out mare is checked out

So we've officially been relegated to the indoor at OF for our lessons. On one hand I'm grateful to have access to this indoor on a weekly basis, but on the other hand it's a small space that rapidly begins feeling claustrophobic with other horses, dogs, and jumping equipment.

so much snow has already melted!

Plus, as mentioned yesterday, Isabel hasn't really been feeling super great about her work. That's not to mean that she's not working well, because she is. She's a super star, obvi. But she feels a little flat about it, a little dull. Like she's maybe phoning it in.

It's hard to describe, really. My general impression was that mare just wanted to run and be free (probably bc she hasn't actually been able to run freely in weeks now...), but begrudgingly acquiesced to my requests anyway bc she's a good girl.

she's still cute tho

And my requests were pretty much for everything BUT running freely. The indoor is 20x40m, and had standards and poles clustered all along the center line and one quarter line. Plus there were five other horses in the lesson with us, and three horses who came in to school throughout the hour. And dogs and people on the ground.

So sharing space was critical, and there was very little room to go any faster than a fairly collected and organized canter (which, even then, you might find yourself running into traffic with no room to circle). Fortunately everyone was great about steering and calling out directions - but all the same it limited how much we could do.

welcome to the world of indoor blur...

Mostly I wanted to run through movements from the tests we'll be riding at the schooling show here in mid-February. Some pieces felt good to me - we managed a couple (extremely shallow) canter loops, and were able to change leads through trot on a straight line without drama. Leg yields were harder to practice but we got a couple nice steps. And small circles are par for the course in this arena.

Lengthenings were a challenge tho. Trying at the canter was out of the question bc of ring traffic, and actually our medium trot wasn't there at all. Well, we got one that ended in breaking to canter. All the rest resulted immediately in gorgeous perfect canter transitions.... pleasant to ride but not what I wanted. 

only got videos from tracking right so.... here's another shot of us tracking right lol

That was a little concerning, honestly. But rather than freak out, I'm going to chalk it up to Isabel's over abundance of energy simultaneously paired with a distinct lack of fitness. Add in the crowded claustrophobic atmosphere, and it makes sense that she would go for the more easily managed canter instead of the harder lengthening.

watch out doggie, we're comin for ya!

Things didn't get much better when we moved on to the 'jumping' exercises. Mostly bc it was predominantly ground pole and grid work. Always beneficial for horse and rider, sure, but Isabel would have certainly preferred galloping swooping turns to huge oxers... Sorry mare, we gotta work with what we have!

she clearly takes grids very seriously lol

So she absolutely wanted to race around - but was not in the slightest rude about it. And NAILED every single trot pole and canter pole exercise. Really. She was incredibly well behaved. It just felt like she wasn't super thrilled about it.

still grateful for her nice efforts tho

I tried to let her go a bit when appropriate - like when the exercise was just two canter poles spaced 9' apart. We had much too large of a canter for what trainer P wanted to see, but still hit the poles perfectly, and Isabel was super happy to move out like that. But then poor thing, we had to come back and do it again more collected. Le sigh.

the turn comes up quickly after landing

Last exercise was a simple grid of small one-stride verticals set at 17' to encourage the smaller canter necessary to make the 10m half turns to and from the grid.

I was actually slightly nervous to attempt the grid, only bc I ate dirt during a similar exercise this time last year when the ring was equally crowded and overwhelming. I shouldn't have worried tho, Isabel was perfect for it every time (even when I kept getting left behind at the trot jump bc trot jumps and I are not friends ugh).

neck scratches for the good girl!

It was so funny tho - Isabel was jumping well and staying nicely in balance, but as soon as I'd give the reins to scratch her neck as a reward, she'd ZOOOOOM forward into more canter haha. Mare wanted to GO!

maybe not the happiest horse ever right now

Of course the flip side to mare's need for speed is her lack of fitness - so even this most basic work has the potential to wear her out easily. Plus she's probably already got a bit of muscle stiffness and fatigue from trudging through all the snow in her fields.

seriously, she was completely checked out for the 5-10 minutes I left her standing like this

Oh well. Part of me thinks the answer will be to haul out to a larger indoor (with jumps) and just let her rip around and do whatever she wants. Or maybe even just turn her loose in the arena? But the other side of me is loath to keep shoving her on the trailer day after day when she's already feeling so blah and we won't be able to ride much in between outings anyway...

Idk. Mostly tho I'm just grateful that she's still such a good girl and going so nicely even when she doesn't seem to feel like it. It makes me feel a little guilty tho, like I don't want to demand much from her. Which then calls into question how the upcoming schooling show will go...

But eh, the judge is supposed to be wonderful and we're only doing it to get experience riding first level movements in a test setting. So I won't exactly be devastated if we blow a couple movements. It's still all ahead of us tho. Who knows, maybe the snow will all melt this week and things will suddenly feel brighter?

Oh these winter blues....