Monday, February 11, 2019

Good Lines and Bad

I generally ride in the morning before work, and usually have the arena to myself.  An additional benefit is they drag early morning, so I can see our tracks which is very helpful in checking straightness or geometry.  Of course by the end of our ride it is kind of hard to tell!

Here are some things I noticed in our ride today.  Our small circles are tighter going left (which is the right circle in the picture). 
Small circles - the tighter one on the right was actually on the left rein
On a 20 meter circle at the trot I was happy to see only two hoof prints, indicating that Cupid was tracking up exactly.  However the lines indicate a bit of toe drag.  The arena was deep dragged last week so may have been a little deeper.
I haven't jumped in a while but took advantage of the low crossrails set up.  I felt a bit rusty and was throwing myself on Cupid's neck a bit, but he was being good.  I was pretty happy with his trot changes between the jumps.  What I really need to do it put up cones before/after the jumps so I come in straight and complete the lines.  Here's one fence I really goofed, you can see the bad turn to the fence and then being very offcenter, which got even worse after landing.
Bad approach...
...leads to landing crooked
We were straighter into this jump, but did waver a bit on the landing side.
Better but still not straight
By the end of our ride the tracks are no longer discernible!

In other news Cupid is starting to shed.  This is the first year he wasn't clipped, so it should be extra fun.  :)


5 comments:

  1. ha i kinda love/hate freshly drug rings for this exact reason....

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  2. I love a freshly dragged ring- it gives such great feedback.

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    1. More useful than mirrors for me, because I can't pay attention to both my reflection and riding :p

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  3. Ohhhh I love being able to see my tracks, how fun!! So glad everything is going well with Cupid. The cones sounds like a great idea! What do you think the toe drag means?

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    1. That surprised me because he felt engaged, so I'm hoping it is just slightly deeper footing but I'll ask my trainer our next lesson if she notices it.

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