Anything to See?



Thankful for this big guy

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. Mine afforded me some time with the hubby, who ever so graciously came to the barn one day to video bits of my ride. It was a lovely weekend weather-wise up here in the PNW - cold but several days of sunshine. I made the best of it and tried to get Ben out a few times in our bigger arena.

My goal with the video was to get a bit of a "check in" to see how he is moving, as compared to his earlier video when he was in much better shape, under the careful guidance of our trainer- oh those were the days! The theme I've been experiencing with him lately is a an okay walk-warm up, then crap trot transitions, crap trotting with lots of resistances -above, sideways, behind the bit - all seemingly stemming from the hind end. I've been trying to let him do some canter with me staying out of his way, and then when I get that, then I go back to trot and everything there is generally much better. In watching these videos I can still see the fussing, and I can see that he could be taking better steps behind, generally be a bit more forward. I can tell you as the rider, the trot FEELS much better after his canter.

Part of me is wondering if there is a lameness issue- a weakness behind yet to be diagnosed. I am interested in getting our new vet to do a work up, but that is going to have to wait until after the holidays. In the mean time, I am going to keep conditioning because I do feel like that will give me more to go on anyway.

Here are the videos - in sequential order. They are intentionally short bits so the files are smaller.

Walk:

First Trot:

Canter Left

Canter Right

Trot Left after Cantering:

Trot Right after Cantering: