Epic Pony Weekend: Dressage Daze

Pretty face!

Friday and Saturday consisted of dressage rides for me and the Baconator. Lindsey generously let us use her fancy Devacoux, which may have been a mistake. It's ok, it is not like I can buy a new saddle right now anyways, but damn my ass liked that piece of cow. It didn't tip me forward, didn't hurt my knees, and felt more in contact with Bacon. I told my husband this and he sent me a picture of a cat vomiting and told me that's what his wallet thought of that.

Uh oh. Toe pointed out.

Day one was a continuation of letting Bacon stretch around the arena and evaluating how she felt. The girls set up the jump course while we scooted around the arena. I wasn't asking her to do much of anything and just enjoyed riding in the pretty saddle. Before the ride started, I got really worried as I tried to put the polos on my horse, but my hands were just not cooperating. I had rolled one of the polos wrong, and when I went to try and re-roll it, I just couldn't get my hands to figure it out. It made me so sad and I began to think that the ride might not turn out so great. Fortunately, Aimee came over and took my polos and fixed it all for me.

Stupid outside leg. Lovely mare.

Bacon's right lead canter was so very nice and soft and she stayed very elastic in the contact. I made sure my hands gave her somewhere to go, and she just went. I could have ridden that all day. At one point, the other two ponies were loose as jumps were being messed with and Aimee snapped a pic of me riding right past the two cool kids who thought nothing of it. The hardest part of the day was when Lindsey told me to keep my toes pointed forward and to que Bacon with my calf and not my heel. I could get my inside leg to cooperate more-so than my outside. But it was amazing how my leg looked longer when I got it right.

I spy and Aimee and Courage!

The second dressage day was just me and Aimee. We got Bacon dressed up and she gave me a dressage lesson. It was on the simplest of things, but them damn things are hard to do. She made me and my horse think. Thinking is hard. We worked on a lot of the things that Aimee had done in one of her clinic rides. Walk horse. Stop. Make sure horse is in balance and listening to your seat. Back horse a few steps to rebalance the weight on the hind end. Walk forward. Stay soft. Stop bracing when asking for the downward transition. Rebalance. Do not rush. Do not ask too much. Do the same at the trot. Keep toes forward. PENIS. And do it all again. And again.

Stay connected at the walk.

That is a better looking leg.

We worked on getting nice balanced upward transitions. Bacon is good at pretending, so we broke it down to small sections and made her be real about her connection. Shit is hard. Ask my horse. She agrees too. She was trying really hard to please me and that was all I could ask of her. At the end, we had a really nice through moment and a really nice ride. The great part is that I can do all of this at home in my tiny arena too. And as much as dressage pisses me off, it felt really nice to get some of those true good moments. So I guess we better keep working on that.

Getting that inside hind to step underneath.

No penis for me!

Damn you dressage.

End result. Engaged hind end. A slightly more responsive horse. And no penis.