Doing it wrong

Another ride today - super stoked that I've managed to ride despite the weather.

HOWEVER: I know I'm doing it wrong and its not in my plan, but sometime life just doesn't work right. I wanted to do at least 10 days of just walking - a working walk, but just walking none the less.

The purpose behind walking when you bring a horse back into work is to prevent injury down the line - its the "hardening" period. Basically turbo is a soft squidgy lax animal right now.. pasture puff - like me. The walking is supposed to allow the horses body to become accustomed to work, the tendons/ligaments to tighten and harden while remaining flexible. All good things can only come of bringing a horse into work slowly.

We had another wee yeehaww moment and well as per yesterday we worked. Big open circles, minimal bend, but insisting on working properly over his back although not "up" more out and over. Roughly 15 Min's of trotting with one break, and then we had a wee little canter once around our big circle (its about 1/3 of the 10 acre paddock) on both reins, a walking lap around the outskirts of the paddock on no contact before heading back to the shed (about a 3 min walk from the paddock). So I'm not doing the walking thing much. I am hoping that because he was really fit when he was turned out, he has kept some of his fitness (appears so for all intents and purposes at this point) and I'm not doing to much damage by skipping the walking.

I'm also going to acquire a electro-acupuncture machine for me, but that I also hope to use on Turbo. The physio has used a similar model on him before with some success. I think with a more conservative longer/lower intensity of the machine will a) prevent the poor boy from almost falling over and b) gain better/longer last results. So I'm off to google the acupoints of the equine and the human. Then to write out that training plan so I can try stick to it - beacuse I know that once I've had another canter or two - I'll be asking Turbo to work that little bit harder because while I'm riding i don't think to much about it and I probably shouldn't.

Oh - one last point to make from todays ride. I re-watched the video's I posted yesterday, bingo got something right. I was sore between my shoulder blades after riding, and today I wasn't because I kept reminding myself to keep the ear/shoulder alignment - funny thing (or not so funny) I wasn't having to think about the elbow/hand so much....