What to say, what do say. Honestly? I don’t even know how to talk about my rides anymore. My ride on Saturday was as good as my ride on Sunday was bad. I don’t really feel like talking about Sunday, but for documenting purposes, I’ll briefly recap.

Due to some work on both the rings (neither had jumps and both had been freshly dragged), we were forced inside as the outside had sprinklers set up and was being watered. Fine, no problem. The ring felt HUGE. Nay isn’t a fan of the indoor, but we whatever. I lunged then got on and we rode with a friend and her 20 year old (very quiet) mare. Nay was full of energy despite a good, long lunge. He NEVER pulls at the trot, but he was digging down and flinging his head. Despite that, we trotted a good 15/20+ minutes and actually had some nice work eventually (we stuck to half the ring). I decided to try and canter on the left lead and… it wasn’t that Nay kept flinging his hind end to the outside but rather that he kept throwing his head up in the air in anticipating. That said, we got the lead. And then he proceeded to take off on me. I mean, it’s Nay, so it wasn’t race track fast, but he was determined. He DID comeback to me when when I insisted and I had him hold the canter about 5-6 strides, praised the heck out him, and then called it a ride.

He had a shit ton of energy and I wasn’t going to get myself hurt. My friend confirmed everything I was feeling so the galloping was not in my mind (it was not your hunter hand gallop; it was an “I want to bolt” gallop). When she was done I pulled his tack and just had him run around the indoor and work off some steam. He rarely does much, but actually ran around and bucked quite a bit. He’s had a decent amount of energy lately so part of me thinks the sugar/starch in his feed may not be agreeing with him, but then I have other rides where he’s an angel and I question that… He did put on a lot of weight fast though…

Saturday, Nay was an angel. He lunged (we’ve been just working on the left on the line), then it started raining? But we rode out anyway. It stopped but there was pretty much no chance of rain.

I tried to work on using my right leg and not getting dizzy. I’ve been dealing with a ton of vertigo this week so doing pretty much anything has been hard. Riding was OK (get off? Not so great). He was pretty good so I either wasn’t using enough leg or he just wasn’t being dramatic. Both are possible. I had some reaction at the walk, but nothing major.

Cantering to the left? I found that our trouble spot generally is over by the pasture fence side of the ring. So, I pretty tried to avoid asking for the canter there. This seemed to work. When we approach that area at the trot, Nay is quick to throw his hind end to the outside and once it’s there, I’m screwed. If I trot through the center and ask where I can keep him straight, I don’t have to manage his hind end as much. There are a few places that he offers me the left lead and I don’t add leg and/or catch him in the mouth and/or bring him back to the trot because I wasn’t expecting it… Well, most the time I just didn’t ask and it caught me off guard. I tried to reward anyway or just not make a fuss. He has a habit of anticipating that doesn’t work. When I ask and he gets it? We throw a party.

We followed the canter up with a small jump, trotting in then cantering it. We didn’t quite get the collection in at the canter, but he landed wrong and offered up a nice simple change.

Before the right lead, we attempted another jump which I’m leaving off the video not because it was bad (it wasn’t the nicest, but you could see Nay launching in jumper mode ::rolls eyes:: refusing to listen in any way, shape, or form), but the location of the pivo doesn’t really allow you to see anything useful…

We did a tiny amount of work on the right lead. While riding, there was a LOT going on. Tractor work moving heavy stuff and then a bunch of motorcycles (insisting on waving). Everytime we make progress on one lead, the other lead starts to go. Nay was convinced that I wanted the left lead so I have to make sure I’m very careful and clear on my aids. We then followed up with the same jump exercise.

We ended by just trying out one of the new jumper fences in the ring. He would have been fine to do the whole line, but I didn’t feel like doing the oxer so we just did the first fence.

It’s just amazing how one day he’s so quiet and the next he’s a fire breathing dragon…