Well...the end of February was mostly a write off. Deep freeze again! When the weather is in the -30's and -40's I don't do much outside other than feed the ponies and haul them water (unfortunately I do not have heated automatic waterers so winter = hauling water from the house. Hey I get a good work out from it at least!). My in laws are in Cuba right now and I am insanely jealous.
So 2 days ago it warmed up to -17 C. Which, sadly, felt warm to me so I was back to my active self after being in forced hibernation for a week. Went out and worked LJ on the lunge (he's catching onto figure eights really well, I should get a video! I am so proud of him!), and decided to give Player his first workout since his injury in January too. He is externally healed up now, but I was worried about any soundness issues so I have him a little more time than probably neccessary but better safe than sorry. I just gave him a 20 minute lunge session and he looked great! There was no short striding or toe dragging going on at all, looked perfectly sound. Which I am very excited about! I worked him yesterday as well, and plan to do some more lunging review exercises with him today as well (forecast says high of -15 C today, practically baumy right?). Next week when the weather warms up even more (if all goes as planned) I plan to start riding him. He's basically had 4 months off though, and looks like crap. Lost his topline completely. So I am mostly going to work on building up his fitness again and getting his topline back. There is an endurance ride on April 23rd I would like to hit, however I am not going to push it with him. If he feels ready by then for a moderate LDR (25 miles) I will go and use it as a conditioning ride, but I am not going to push him. He does have a good base fitness and holds onto his condition really well, so we will see!
Anyways, I am just ecstatic to have my big boy back in training! He is so funny, I almost forgot what he's like. He seems A LOT bigger than LJ (he is about 15 hh, LJ about 14.2 hh though I should stick them...he is quite a bit bigger though LOL), and a lot...lower energy haha! I need to use that lunge whip with him, whereas with LJ it's on the ground because he is just so much more reactive. Which is good and bad....good in that he is a lot more reactive to me and my aids, bad because I need to a lot of desensitising with him as he's reactive to everything (ie.barkings dogs haha!). But he's a lot funner to lunge because he constantly "what do you want me to do? this? is this right?" whereas Player is more "okay, if I have to". Player is a lot more laid back to work with at home, which is funny because he's the booger who I need to concentrate on pacing on the actual rides. He wants to be in front and is willing to kill himself to get ahead of those horses in front of us. So he gets to circle circle circle quite a bit. Actually he is a lot better than he used to be so it is coming! It helps to wait until the front runners who take off fast at first are gone before I get on and start heading down the trail.
Anyways, that turned into a huge novel entry and I haven't even done much exciting as it's obviously still winter here :P Here's a pic of the old boy (okay he's 12, so not exactly old but older than LJ) from the other day. Happy to be back in work and getting attention!
Ugh look at that top line *shudders* Hill work and ground poles coming our way....
