Relaxing Trail Ride

Yesterday, I made an attempt at dressage with Val. I rode him for at least an hour, and we tried to remember all the things we used to know. We did lots of getting an even contact in the walk, and I did quite a bit of posting without stirrups (ouch) to get my leg where it belonged. We did change of bend in the trot, and I tried to work on my sitting the canter. When my trainer came in to give someone else a lesson, she gave me a few pointers, so I stayed for maybe another 15 minutes after that.

According to her, he was tight across the top line and not taking the right rein correctly, so we worked on that for a while until I felt like we'd made a little progress. I was a bit frustrated with how hard it was for me to keep my position decent and how I was having trouble getting Val to do what he needed to do, so I eventually said the heck with it and hit the trails.

We have a couple loops behind our barns, and Val and I followed one of my favorites. They probably take only 10 minutes to ride max, so they're not particularly long trails, but I still like them. We found this one place in the woods where there's this old, dead, tree that's twisted from the wind. We stopped there for a while and just listened. It was cool to hear the birds slowly gather their courage to start chattering again after Val and I disturbed the peace.

Then we followed the path until it comes out by the river/stream, and we realized that when it's been raining really hard there's a mini-rapid that you can see. Also, there's a path that goes straight down to the water, which might be worth investigating for this summer. I'd have to go in on foot and make sure it's safe, but it probably is. It might be too muddy, though.

So we had a little adventure and relaxed and forgot all about dressage for a little while. Just what we needed.