Firstly let me say happy new year and I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas. Rabbit had a very quiet time over Christmas and new year as it is also my wedding anniversary and I had a holiday, so I used this time to give him a break as he has been competing quite hard.
My qualification confirmation for Area Festivals came through. It was a bit of a shock to find out the two I have planned to do Solihull and Prestige Equestrian has been moved to the end of January and the start of February so I don’t have much time to get back in practice and blow the dust off.
I was shocked to find after a two week break I seem to have forgotten how to ride. We had to take a step back and concentrate on ensuring the basics were still there and well established. I really feel like this was a bit of a breakthrough for us as I finally worked out how to control the outside shoulder which enables us to get more engagement and keep him straight.
I’ve also been working very hard at doing lots of give and retakes to help develop the self carriage. I have always liked a strong contact but unfortunately with Rabbit this makes him short in the neck so I am having to learn to ride on as light of a contact as possible which has been very hard but is definitely a much more enjoyable feeling and Rabbit definitely prefers it.
I am a little apprehensive about Areas as everything was feeling very safe and established but having the break and changing my riding has made it feel a little more fragile. I know once this is safer it will improve our way of going dramatically. So we have a few more weeks to improve as much as we can! I hope we will have a success at Areas and nail a qualification for Nationals so fingers crossed for me 😁
© Sue Palmer, The Horse Physio, 2021
Treating your horse with care, connection, curiosity and compassion
