I hate Daylight savings time changes

I woke up crazy early this morning because of the time change, so I ended up getting out to the barn earlier than I normally would have on a Sunday.  When I got there, I dug through my tack box for my medium gullet plate for my dressage saddle, because I've been thinking about changing it for a little while now, and the chiro visit kinda confirmed that I probably needed to change it (Otter was in the medium narrow plate).  Once I got that switched over, I headed out to get him.  Keeping in mind my experience from Friday, I went over and greeted his buddies first then walked over to Otter.  No issues catching him today.  

I groomed up my muddy boy and tacked him up, then headed into the indoor since the outdoor arena looked sloppy.  I lunged Otter for a few minutes to see how he was moving and was happy to see that he was moving pretty freely and evenly behind (he has been slowly getting over a minor stifle strain resulting from acting like a fool in turnout.  He's pretty dramatic about even minor things).  I hopped on him and starting warming him up.  During warm up I was really excited to notice a big difference in how he was moving through his shoulders and neck - much more loose and forward moving than before the adjustment!  After we finished warming up, I decided I would do some no-stirrup work before both of us were too tired.  I've been working on walk-trot and trot-walk transitions a lot recently, trying to get him more responsive to my aids.  The upward transitions have been going fairly well, but downwards have still been kinda messy.  Otter is a bit heavy on his forehand due to him not liking to use his bum, and due to his big movements, I have a tendency to hover over the saddle vs. really sitting deep into it, especially during downward transitions.  So during our no-stirrup session today, we worked on transitions, and I feel like I was much better about sitting deeper in the saddle since I didn't have the stirrups to brace against. As a result, I felt like our downward transitions were much cleaner today than they have been recently although they still can use a lot of work.  I also did a lap around the ring at a posting trot sans stirrups.  All in all, I made it about 10 minutes today before I gave up and put them back on my saddle.

Once I got my stirrups back on, we worked on Otter using his hindquarters more, and did some trot poles and some canter departures.  Really happy with how our ride went today. 

No barn tomorrow night, since I work then have class.  I'll go out again probably on Tuesday and do some more flat work then jump either Wednesday or Thursday.  Really looking forward to jumping him again, since it's been a while because of Otter being sore.

 

Challenges:

 

No stirrup November:  Did 10 minutes today, walk-trot transitions and posting trot.  Will try to do 10 minutes without all this week, then go to 20 mins next week.

 

 

Plank challenge:  Did the 1st day of it last night (20secs), easy breezy.