I really cannot express my excitement for this training excursion that I am doing this weekend! Today was the first day of what I have dubbed "boot camp" for me and Buddy. We traveled to my trainer's farm, North Star Training Center, to spend three days of training at her farm while she is home from Florida. I spent the entire morning cleaning tack and packing the trailer with all of the essentials that Buddy would need to stay in Chapel Hill (tack, feed, hay, blankets, etc). We left around 12:30 to get there about 45 min. before my first lesson. Unfortunately, the traffic gods were not in our favor today and dealt out very poor drivers the entire way there. With only 15 min. to get Boo tacked and warmed up I pulled him out of the trailer and threw the tack on. Our five minute warm-up was surprisingly relaxed, elastic, and pliable. This was definitely a plus for what was about to come!
The major focus of the weekend is going to be stretching both Buddy and I out. Stretching up and down became the newest addition to my mantra. In stretching down, I was to work on rotating my knee inward towards my saddle to help reinforce my half-halts and quit my lazy chair routine that I tend to get with my legs. This stretched all of the muscles in my thighs as well as some very hidden/dormant muscles all the way up into my groin...ouch! Stretching up entailed strengthening my core in order to sit up and get my bum more underneath me versus behind me. Describing it in words is hard but riding it is even more difficult!
Buddy's bend-ability was his focus which required tons of lateral bending with exercises of over- bending/outside half-halts to get him to really fill up the outside aids as well as half-pass/leg-yield/half-pass to make sure that it was working. This was done and both trot and canter. We started to wrap things up with some medium/extended trots to enforce the soft forward and back with true lengthening. My trainer had us finish with some much needed/deserved "bending" stretch downs...boy what a work-out! Buddy was an absolute star! He tried every step and didn't fuss or argue about the level of work at all. I was surprised and extremely pleased for such a rushed arrival and warm-up!
When the lesson was done, my dad (who is also my trailer chauffeur and camera man) helped me unpack the trailer and get Buddy settled in his new house for the weekend. Buddy has a large stall in the main barn with a (much larger than the one at home) automatic waterer, private patio (small attached paddock) that looks out into the covered arena and tomorrow will have access to his own grass paddock! What a lucky boy! His neighbor across the aisle is very handsome chestnut warmblood who seemed very interested in Buddy's arrival.
Tomorrow morning starts day 2 of the boot camp and I have taken my Advil since my "undeveloped core muscles" and quads were screaming by the time we started to drive home from NSTC. My lesson is at 10:15, meaning I have to be at the farm by 9:30 so it's up bright and early on a Saturday morning to do some serious learning and I'm completely stoked to do it :) Until tomorrow!
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