Camp Day 2: Ride - ability

CAMP DAY 1 (Friday)

... as a sidenote, Friday evening Hampton had a chiropractor adjust his hyoid bone. I think I will write a separate post about this, but he got adjusted and put to bed Friday evening.

____

Saturday morning rolled around and already I was off the bandwagon and drinking Coke and taking Tylenol. I was hoping that Hampton was not as sore as I was! I was also curious to see if his adjustment would affect his attitude. I threw the snaffle bridle on.

You'll notice I put a running martingale on him as well. This was for my safety and peace of mind. :)
Thankfully I didn't need it!

I gave him a light lunge for our morning lesson just to see how he was. He did not look sore, and was really calm and willing to work. When I got on, I felt much of the same. Big sigh of relief from me - I had my horse back! Had the adjustment made a difference? The bute? Maybe he was stressed from having his routine so disrupted? Was something pinching him the day before?

I'll probably never know.

My coach was equally as happy and we cautiously proceeded to go to work. Thankfully, Hampton was a super star. My parents came up to watch and I'm glad they got to see us go to work instead of watching their daughter hang on for dear life.

Happy! Big old Hampton next to my good friend's American Sport Pony.
What a crew.

Hamps tried so hard for me and we did some major work on cleaning up our changes and making him WAIT for my aids. We tackled some canter pirouette work and also focused a little on our half passes. I have some great new homework on cleaning up the changes. That deserves a separate post as well. My coach said we "could easily do 4-3 with the exception of our one sometimes-late change." This was a major compliment to me as I have been really wishy-washy about even attempting 4-1 just yet. Also, major improvement from the day before when we would have barely scored a 40% at a Training Level test. Thanks, horse. They are always humbling you!

Our afternoon lesson went just as well. Hampton showed no signs of being tired. All of my worries about his fitness went out the window. He handled the work wonderfully. Our second lesson was more cleaning up the changes and really focusing on lifting his shoulders and getting his hind end under him. Many big trot-to-think passage transitions, making him adjustable and bringing his booty under him.

We also had lunge lessons on school horses. It's been ... WAY too long since I've had a proper lunge lesson. I loved every second! After the lunge lesson I took some Ibuprofen as I was sore almost immediately. hahaha. errrrr.

At the end of the day Hamps got some paddock and grazing time, a good rub down and put to bed. We had some dinner and drinks and collapsed into bed at an embarrassingly early time.

Evening grazing session. It was cold and raining all day Saturday.
I was pretty happy I decided to skip Rolex and instead
ride in an indoor arena.

I did a major blogger fail and really did not get many photos. It seemed like me and my friends were riding at the same time everyday, so no time to take many photos. I am sorry blog land!

We had one more camp day to go. I was hoping Good Hampton would be back the next day!