End of test at Otter Creek HT

The horse chiropractor was supposed to come today but he was a bit late.  Ok, he was 2 hours late.  God love him, he is the best I have ever seen work on a horse, judging from the horses’ expressions, but he has almost literally no sense of time.  Well, I knew that, which is why I had the appointment scheduled at my house instead of at the clinic – so that I could ride or putter about the place while I waited.

So I rode a training horse, who was a champion in ignoring the snapping drapes (partial roll-up sides on the arena) in the 45 mph wind, puttered about the barn doing some sweeping and doing a little tack cleaning.  I didn’t want to tack up another horse, get into a ride and then have the chiropractor arrive 10 minutes into the ride, when I would have to stop.  Well, then I got a call that we would have to postpone the chiro visit until tomorrow.

So, I tacked up Eddie and rode during the time that I had set aside to be with the chiropractor.  This meant that I had two and half hours!  I don’t know about your life, but found time is rockin’ to me.  So I tacked up.  I got to thinking about the weekend and the basic difficulty we were having – tightness over the topline.  It was directly mentioned in the dressage test, it played a roll in the turn (or non turn) to the corner on xc, and it played a big roll in showjumping.  The judge’s comments on our dressage test had also pointed out a lack of acceptance of the bridle and acceptance of the leg.  Very good points.  We went back to square one.  We started with walk and halt, and spent about half an hour on that.  Then on to walk trot, and after another quiet half hour had that mostly in hand.  Canter work is not even close, but we had a few moments of Not Bad.  The best part of the whole day was that the number of relaxed breaths from Eddie dramatically outnumbered the tension snorts that he will let out when confused.

Much praise and done for the day.   We’re on the road back.