Radar is a pain in the ****
Radar is, quite literally, a pain in the proverbial. For some reason, he is giving me a terrible strain of a ligament attached to the left hand side of the last vertebra in my coccyx. It REALLY hurts. It started while out hunting on Saturday. I felt it yesterday a bit but today it was very painful. I have Tetley's old saddle on him, so it's not the saddle. Jazz is no problem to ride with it, so it's not "riding" in general or a strain done some other way. But rising trot on Radar is enough to make me grimace. I hope a few days away from riding him over the weekend will sort it out. He is still such an uneven sided horse, and he drops his back away from under my left seatbone and I think I am probably making a much bigger effort than I realise to sit straight and keep him moving straight.
After a sometimes painful but generally enjoyable hack on Radar, I schooled Jazz to improve his medium trot with no problems. Well, except the basic problem that medium trot is not a natural pace for him and he dives into my hands rather than lifts in front. He is improving, but it is slow work, unlike his collected stuff which is a piece of cake. He did two flying changes too, one each way, and we were outdoors so it looks as though that's improving too, because he got it spot on at the first attempt.
C
posted by cptrayes @ 6:01 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Chance tends to drop out from under me on the right. Put our two boys together and we'd have one even horse! *G* Counter bending on that side might help "fill him out" to the left. I know the feeling all too well. Fortunately, my back seems to adjust pretty well to the one sidedness. Hope yours feels better sooner than later.
And good for Jazz!! The changes are getting more and more solid. He'll figure out the lengthenings. It may not be his strongest skill, but I'm sure he manage just fine. He's a good hard worker. Do you do them out of shoulder in? I forget if you said you did. Sometimes that helps the hind end engage under. Just do the short diagonal off the side from a shoulder in. I'm pretty sure you've done that, but it could help him keep his balance and with the shorter distance he won't have so much arena to drop back down.
I do it out of shoulder in jean, but I had not thought of doing it across the short diagonal to stop him having the room to collapse. I'll try that when the arena dries out after the rain forecast for the next three days. Thanks!
C
My back is a lot better today but I decided not to ride. I'm offline now until Monday with other stuff to do.
C
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