New Setting

I finally got permission to ride at HRK's facilities - although they haven't billed me yet :P They have 2 indoor arenas (20*60 and 20*40), a longing rotunde, 3 outdoor dressage arenas and 2 outdoor jumping arenas - a little fancier than the non-standard size, poorly lit, sloping dirt arena we have at AG ;)

I rode up there last weekend, but their outdoor show had been moved inside because of rain, so I wasn't able to ride in the indoor. I went out to the outdoor arena the show was supposed to have been at, it was marked out with letters and judges booths, and took the opportunity to desensitize him a bit to riding in an unfamiliar arena. He was quite tense, and I wasn't able to get much work out of him, but I rode him around in walk and trot until he relaxed, gave him a good at and then rode home again.

I tried again Thursday morning. There were a handful of other riders in the large arenas, seemed to be the bereiters and bereiter students training their dressage horses, and awful lot of piaff-passage-pirouettes-flying changes etc being trained - and there I was on my long-haired, feathered pinto, just trying to get him to relax and stretch FDO :P

He was more tense than at home of course, but still very rideable, didn't shy at anything. It probably helped that there were other horses there. He did catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror at one point, where he stopped, stared, and whinnied - I guess he's missed being able to see himself LOL

I was able to ride much more focussed in the indoor than at home, no footing issues to consider, mirrors to check my position and check his straightness etc, plus being the worst rider in the arena was a big motivational factor :D It'll be really good to have the facilities available through the fall/winter months, I'll probably ride there 2-3 times a week. It takes about 20 mins to walk there from the barn, so that's a good warm-up.