Physio visit, pole work and jumping – good week!

The week's been full of horsing around. The weather has become decidedly more wintry and the paddock has turned into a Somme again. 

Monday was R's day off and she had her first physio visit. Nothing major was detected and she was mostly found to be OK. Little stiffness on the right shoulder and I discussed R's canter with the physio as it hasn't been quite as rolling as it could be – this I have mainly noticed in the school, not so much when cantering outside, but this is probably to do with the constant circular movements in schooling. We were given a little stretching regime to stick to from now on, which is to be carried out after exercise when she's warm. 

Rainbow being massaged

The regime involves stretching R's back and sides so that I stand by her shoulder, my back against the shoulder, facing away from her and holding a carrot. I encourage her to bring her head and neck around past me, so the opposite side/back is stretched. Then we repeat the same on the other side. Then another movement is to bring the carrot in between R's front legs, so she reaches towards it between her legs, stretching the top line/back. 

Rainbow is a very keen stretcher, especially when there are carrots to be eaten mid-stretch – two ladies doing they morning 'pilates'... maybe I'll get us both matching 1980s style leotards and sweat bands to complete the look...

Finally we stretch the shoulders by me bringing R's front leg up (in turn, not at the same time!) holding around the fetlock and make sure my back is straight and lean backwards holding the leg, encouraging her to let me stretch the leg and giving her weight into me... This  stretches the shoulder (Rainbow's shoulder, not mine, although I am sure this counterweight stretching might have some mutual benefits). Currently it's obvious that her left shoulder is more fluid than the right side, clearly moves further forward when 'pulling' the leg. But the physio said this is fine, and that's why we're doing the stretches that the right side becomes equally fluid too.

Then we were given pole work as a form of exercise to do, which should encourage R pick up her legs thus engaging the hind, and loosening the muscles too. The physio said the poles should be dotted around the arena and shouldn't always be in a straight line. I should take R around them in circles and approaching from different angles – circles, figures of eight and so on. The physio also said to raise one side of a pole with a block and take R over so she can pick up one side more at a time, also helping with all the above. 

Tuesday was to be a gentle day of exercise, after the massage. I had set my sights to going in the school to lunge R over poles but the local RDA group were being interviewed on BBC Radio Oxford (The slots are at 1:20, 1:49, 2:23 and 2:53 on the slider if you want to listen), so I couldn't use the school. I took R out for a little hack around the village instead! We haven't been out on our own for a long time, so it was quite exciting, but all went well. R is always a bit more alert when she is out on her own, but overall very sensible. I stuck to the quieter roads and didn't go around the whole village, as didn't fancy the main road, but I was very pleased I went out with her.

Wednesday, armed with our new pole 'regime' we had our Mary Webb lesson. I asked to incorporate poles into our lesson, which Mary was happy to accommodate. The lesson went well and actually got Rainbow moving very nicely off my leg, with very soft reins (finally!) – especially at the beginning she didn't seem too keen on the idea of me riding her, moving around in her stable and looking a bit sulky when the tack came out. But with bit of soft rein and bouncing over poles, and lots of praise, R couldn't resist being sulky all morning but clearly thawed and was soon working nicely and moving forwards with nice paces.

Today we had a jumping lesson with our friends Sarah and Sampson. Sarah and I have similar preferences and ideas of jumping, the size of the jumps, etc., so I enjoy sharing lessons with her. Our 'in-house' instructor A was teaching. 

I was first a bit concerned about the early-morning sun beaming into the arena as R has spooked at our shadows in the past. I know how silly it sounds when have written it here! But, for some reason, it seemed that this was too much for me to bear with the added excitement by the jumps. Especially a jump that seemed to glimmer in the sunshine when everything around it were in the shade and quite dark. But A had a few stern words with me and said it's better to practise going over 'funny' jumps that had light beaming on them than having to face them for the first time in a competition. True. 

So A gave us a task of doing a course of three or four jumps with some variations. One of which was the funny 'lit-up one'. Well, Rainbow flew over and I seemed to stay on, so she was due some very generous patting and praise :). Over one jump, she even looked after me and changed her approach to keep me on – she was going fast and 'leapy' but changed it into a nice 'pop-over' at the last minute to wait for me. She's a star! 

A slight dampening of the lesson was that Sarah somehow knocked her thumb during a jump and it became so sore she had to go and get it X-rayed. Luckily no broken bones but some soft-tissue damage. Hope she's feeling better soon, as I want to have our regular jumping lessons from now on!