Reality In Pictures

So, I have pictures from my most recent ride. They are not nearly as nice as the last photos I showed, but those were handpicked from video taken during a good month, and these are randomly taken during a ride from an iffy month, which September has turned out to be. I was hopeful that Sofie would be doing better by now, and able to hold up to more and better work, but she is how she is, and I have to respect that. I've been feeling low recently, and I'm finding it difficult to think positively. I'm a little tired of adversity, to be honest.

But our last ride did go well (even if the pictures are less than stellar). Surprisingly well. I had been feeling weepy and hopeless all day, so I was just hoping to get through the ride without emotional overflow. Sofie seemed in a bit of a funk, too. She wasn't really that much "off", or anything, but she walked away from me when I went to catch her for the first time in a long time, and her expression during the tacking up process was very unenthused. But we did have a good ride, going down the trail (at least as far as we could go before running into fallen trees) and then working in the yard. She went more forward than she has been going in the trot work (not really "forward", but less foot-dragging than usual) and even threw in a canter. She got a little upset with me for not letting her drift toward the barn, but did hardly anything threatening. I did some walk work on light contact, too, which we need to work on. She tends to think of contact as meaning "do something" and she gets tense and anticipatory. So we need to work on getting a relaxed walk on contact. We need to work on contact in general. She's been funny about contact lately. She really doesn't want to use her hind end, which is understandable, but we still need to do a little bit of work on contact.

I guess I really need to think of riding as therapy right now, rather than training. We are riding, at least, which is good. I'm just in a bad place right now, and it's hard to feel good about anything.

So. Onto pictures. To me, her expression in a lot of these is less than enthused, which is what I've been feeling when I ride her. She's not kicking out, she's not resisting heavily, she's not really pissed off (at least most of the time), there's just not really any joy or enthusiasm. I do tend to worry too much about that. Riding is therapy for her, and even if she's not thrilled about it, it's better than her standing in a field.

My equitation has gotten a little slouchy again. At least I don't have a consistent slouch in all the pictures, so I'm still ahead of where I used to be. Something to work on...

Warming up







These last two really show the difference in her neck depending on how she reacts to the bit.



Picking up my reins after a halt


Some of our walk and trot "work"



A tighter turn in a corner


Baditude! (She's wanting to drift toward the barn, I'm going "No" and using an opening rein, which she just loves, if you can't tell)


Her face is cute in this one. Otherwise, it kind of makes my eyes burn. Very disengaged trot, and I'm reverting to my faux-huntseat. It buuuurns...


THE SCARY CORNER!!!


Pretty horse, pretty colors.




A trot picture that isn't totally inverted!