FORWARD!!

As per my goals, this is my weekly post on how Izzy and I are tackling our issue of forward lately.

First off, here's a picture of Izzy all gussied up for dressage. She knows she looks awesome.

And another Izzy picture, this time sporting her fancy climatex wraps.

This is post workout, so she is a little sweaty, but not bad. What a lovely girl.

So we have been doing dressage lately (LOOOOOVE my new saddle), but it's finally quit raining constantly, and the track has at last dried up. Hooray! We tacked up and marched across the scary bridge for our first real conditioning work of the season. I tried to keep it simple--4 laps trot, one lap walk, twice each way. That's .8 miles trotting, or 1.6 each way, for a total of 3.2 trot miles. So far, so good.

Then it was time to canter. We did three laps of canter, then one lap of walk, twice each way. Same calculations--.6 miles cantering per set, so 2.4 total canter miles. The kicker was this: I did almost all the canter miles in two point. It was KILLER.

It was great to be out on the track, though. I got to really focus on keeping my balance even on both sides and getting comfortable up out of the tack. When I first went up in two point, I hated my saddle and thought there was no way I could ever hold my balance in it. 2.2 miles of screaming thighs later, I realized that it was not that bad. Not good, but not that bad.

It was a good workout for both of us. We walked about a mile to cool out and return our heart rates to normal.

In other news, our thinline reins worked fabulously. I'll definitely get a pair for dressage eventually. Our thinline pad showed up yesterday, so I'm excited to try it out this afternoon. I -might- be looking at jumping saddles, too. Wish me (hypothetical) luck!