A Good Day for a Gallop

To start out, I thought you all should know that it's very difficult to type when the cat has stolen your seat and you are perched on the edge of the bed leaning over to your desk!


After two very successful dressage days in a row - my horse's brain is back!! - it was time yesterday to start gallop conditioning in earnest. Last weekend we started on our walk hacks, which start out at 10 minutes of energetic trot, then 1:50 of walking for a total of two hours. This will build to an eventual 25 minutes of trot, and the remainder of the two hours still being a walk hack. We will do one of those a week, and one aerobic gallop session a week, along with jumping and dressage work. I recently got permission from Lynnie's neighbors to go out and use their big field that they sometimes make hay in. When the growing season gets going a little more, I dunno if I'll still have permission, so I'm going to make good use of it now while the weather is dry and the footing is good! It's a good 15 minute hack down the road to get there, which was a nice warmup, and once there I walked the perimeter of the field once to check for footing. It was PERFECT, so I started off with my sets, as follows:

Walk hack to field
4 minutes trot
2 minutes walk
4 minutes trot
2 minutes walk
4 minutes trot
2 minutes walk

4 minutes 350mpm canter
2 minutes walk
4 minutes 350mpm canter
2 minutes walk
4 minutes 470mpm canter
Walk hack home

As a note for any of you trying this - don't start out with an unfit horse, or a horse that has only been in light work! We've been doing hard dressage and jumping work all winter, and I felt this was just right enough to break a sweat and push her but not get too muscle tired or sore.

And wow. Just... WOW. Her gallop gets bigger every year. She was a little looky and distractable in the trot to start out, but once she settled into the rhythm, she was perfect. Up in the canter, I couldn't have asked for better work. She has so many gears and so much rateability now, whereas before we has stop, go, and sometimes turn (when she was younger). Now, she maintained that 350mpm steady canter in earnest, never rushing down or up the hills, turning with the slightest hint of the question, and slowing exactly when asked. She also loves this saddle, because she did something she never used to do in the other saddle - she reached out and took a contact. A real, solid counterbalance point contact. I felt completely comfortable and effortless in my halfseat because she and I were working together through this comfortable contact, perfectly poised and balances, moving and working together with ease and grace. And when I opened up and let her move out into her 470mpm gallop, let me tell you, there's nothing like it. I'm going to venture a guess that it was probably more like 520mpm and she had plenty left to give, with zero urging on my part, and zero need to ask her to slow. She was completely in control, completely aware of her body, and completely comfortable and taking my contact again. It was so easy, and so easily sustained. Her gallop is twice as huge as I remember it being, and twice as effortless.

At the end, we were wet with sweat and rainwater (it started to rain for the first time in about three weeks while we were riding), and I could feel the trickle of sweat between my shoulderblades, and see the foam on her neck from where the reins and her breastcollar moved against her skin. She was perky as could be, calm and alert, and powerwalked her way back to the barn, confident and happy. She still had more to give. Back at the barn, the work caught up with her, and she laid down and took a nice long nap, and bounced right back up on her feet when the haycart came by, feeling refreshed and with her energy replentished.

Today, she looks great. I gave her a gram of bute just to make sure she didn't have any achey muscles, and fancied her all up for the Sharon Schneideman clinic today. I'm riding in about half an hour, so it's time for me to go! Updates on that later!

I have the most amazing mare. I bought her as a Prelim prospect, but I really think she could go all the way.