Lope Pattern and Open Arena

The pasture looked so pretty and peaceful when I arrived last night, no hoofprints behind ten feet of here:

I soon discovered why:

It appears the boys spent most of the day inside their shelters, and where even given dinner early, muching away as I arrived.

You have got to be kidding me, I am not going out there, Milo says.

But the halter around his head convinced him otherwise. This is Milo's very unimpressed look:

Aww C'mon Milo! The gate was closed up when I arrived, that means no one is here and we will have the whole arena to ourselves!

I'm not sure that did the trick, or the idea of going into the warm barn, but Milo perked right up and followed me up the long (and slippery) driveway.

And indeed, the arena was empty, the barn was deserted. Funny how a little snow can do that. Some days I really do love my little red F150...

I warmed up Milo a bit and we settled into some work. Mostly, I took advantage of the empty arena to work on the "serpentine" exercise at the lope that Sarah had told me about. In fact, after reading Equine Fitness - A Program of Exercises and Routines for Your Horse I discovered this same exercise being depicted in the book as well. If you dont remember, the exercise is to establish a nice lope (and OMG when I first got Milo into it, his head was dropped, his back was lifted, and he wasnt rocketing around the arena - needless to say it was a fabulous lope) then as you come along a long side, direct towards the inside a bit, then back to the rail, then back following the rail. So it should look something like this:

So yeah, please ignore my special drawing, and the fact that it says "Rectangle", I couldnt find the exercise from the book online. But basically you lope off the rail then come back to it then repeat. As your horse gets better you increase that angle off the rail more and more until you are almost to the other side of the ring.

So the first attempt with Milo left him a bit unbalanced once back to the rail and turning. He almost wanted to break to trot, but I pushed him out of it. By about the third attempt, he figured out to lift up his shoulders to stay balaced all the way through, but I could tell it was hard for him and knew it was not time to increase the angle yet.

I did this the other direction as well (to the left) which was much more difficult to do correctly as Milo kept twisting his head out and bulging his shoulder in. So I had to use a lot of leg, and a fair amount of rein trying to get his neck and shoulders straight. I did get one nice pass through on the fourth try I believe then brought him to a trot to start some cool down.

If I can continue to work on this exercise (as arena access allows) it should help "unlock his shoulders" as Sarah says. I also feel this will help him regain total balance in the lope (he still likes to drop shoulders and lean into turns) and should also help us work on our lead changes (I have ditched lead changes for the time being, I figure Sarah can help us get put together correctly then work on them when we are ready - so what if its a deduction in a class, I dont want to push us to do a sloppy one).

I tossed Milo's cooler on, and took his neck cover from out of the dust. It was supposed to be 18 degrees last night and 32 today, so Milo definitely needed some extra protection. I braided his mane in a few spots to try and combat some of the rubbing the darned cover does, hopefully it works and doesnt backfire on me allowing it easier access to rub the entire braids out!

Oh yeah, and my feet were rather cold after the ordeal. Leather does not insulate!