Seen and Not Heard: Distractions and Stirrups

Last Thursday was a trail ride again, and I rode Hawk. It was 114° and humid, as we're just starting our Monsoon season here in Southern Arizona. As we were tacking up, it began to pour. Five minutes later, when we were in the saddle about to head out, it stopped raining, but had cooled down by about 30°. It was beautiful.

It hasn't rained in this area since that night, although the monsoon officially "started" at the end of last week. Since there's no rain, all that really means is we're getting highs around 110°, and have high humidity (it's not a "dry" heat during the monsoon season). Check the picture, those gray fluffy things in the sky are known as clouds... we don't get to see them too often in Southern Arizona.

The owner of Mystic (the Halflinger I rode in the middle of June), was there today. She competes in Combined Driving. Unfortunately for me, the one thing in the world that Hawk doesn't really care for is a carriage. He really, really just wanted to stand still and keep an eye on what they were doing.

After the carriage was off on the road again, we tried some canter. While I finally got a some speed in the trot, Hawk just didn't think I was doing well enough for canter (might be the leaning forward, I'm not supposed to be doing that). Coupled with my total inability to steer while asking for canter, Julie decided to get the lunge line again.

While being lunged, I was able to get into a canter.

But it didn't last long, so obviously we need to try something a little different... how about taking away my stirrups?

Apparently my seat is much better without stirrups. The arc in my back all but vanishes, and everything lines up pretty much as it should. Both the sitting trot and canter without stirrups went much better than with, though I'm pretty sure there are going to be new muscles unhappy with me by tomorrow.