Follow up to yesterday's post

Today is the third day in a row I have ridden the new exercise I mentioned in yesterdays blog entry. And I ran into some interesting things that I wanted to share. Today Dublin would not stretch as well has he has in the past few days. I eventually got him to do it in the walk, but at the trot he had his nose straight out and his neck high. I only was able to get him to stretch down for half a circle a couple of times. While he was relaxed and enjoying his morning, I just couldn't get him to stretch at the trot.

So one of three possibilities are at work here:
1) He is still trying to figure out what the heck I want.

2) He has been doing all this stretching over his topline and this is a totally NEW thing to him and he is a little sore.

3) Pulling my leg.

I seriously think it is mostly #2 and a little of #1. After we worked as usual, we went back and tried to cool down by stretching again. He did okay in the walk, meaning he stretch out and down some, but would pop up rather quickly. But we never got more than a few strides at a time in the trot and it took so long to get his neck down.

So my very uneducated theory on this is that he is sore, that he has not used these muscles in this way much. And we will continue to do it lightly with out fighting (because after all this is supposed to be a relaxing exercise and time in our ride as well as a strengthening exercise for his back). I still really like this way to warm up. Dublin will do big sighs after a few minutes of walking this way and I really feel him stepping up under himself. My riding buddy mentioned that he steps a good 12 inches over his front hoof print, which is excellent.

More later as we progress!