Krystal’s had a great few weeks since the last post on the blog. On the warmest day this week, when it got to nearly 50 degrees, she and I went on a trail ride. We were the first ones to trail ride this year! It was an absolute success. We did about 5 minutes of ground work in the indoor and then went outside and got on. We rode out around the dressage ring by the other horses, out past the shop, across the soybean field, came back along the fenceline, walked through some snow that had been a drift and was the only snow spot left in the field, rode out the back driveway to the woods and then back home. She walked past Mary’s two horses and donkey and stayed right on the trail, even when the donkey started heading her way to check her out! She was very careful to watch where she was walking and what she was doing but not in a spooky, scared way, in a cautious way.
On Thursday Rick got on and rode Krystal for about 10 minutes at the end of our ride. He hadn’t been on her for about 6 months. He was happy with how she was doing and as he started playing around on her he started working on her leg yields! It was quite different for her to start putting more pieces together but she worked at it and did great. I was almost to the point of thinking I needed a whip to back up my leg a bit when the work got a bit more difficult but Rick worked on her forward while doing those harder exercises and she was immensely different the next day when I rode her.
Cordia Pearson, our saddlefitter, checked Krystal’s saddle fit Saturday and her back has changed yet again, in a good way, so she’s now using Safarr’s old L&R Berkely. She changes saddles about every 3 wks so it’s a good thing I didn’t sell any of my old ones! George is back in his dressage saddle after needing the Meleeta western saddle for several months, and Obie, Rick & Kari’s TB moved out of Kari’s Meleeta and into my Laser. Safarr’s Concorde is still fitting him nicely. That’s the downside of being able to build back muscle quickly in the horses with the exercises we do, they outgrow their saddles sometimes. Since Nov 1 Krystal has been in the Meleeta, Rick’s L&R Ellipse for his WB mare, George’s Ellipse, back to Rick’s Ellipse and now Safarr’s Berkley. Cordia thinks Krystal will most likely go through every saddle I own by the end of this show season! Lucky for us Cordia has a horse in training here so we can have saddle fit checked whenever we think it needs to be looked at.
Krystal’s improvement in the last month is keeping us on track for her to hit the show ring right away this spring!! She’s cantering around the arena now and thinking she’s pretty brave. With any luck we’ll just keep moving forward!
