Arena Ride Day 3, 4 and 5

Arena Ride Day 3, 4 and 5



With all the excitement of Ranger’s virus, I forgot to mention about Cole’s arena work. On Day 3, I opted to turn him out to play in the huge outdoor arena. It finally was dry enough that I felt he would run. (He won’t run much in mud.) Run he did—until he was just dripping in sweat. I cleaned him up the best I could and then rode him at a walk out on the drive for a half hour until the indoor arena was empty of riding lessons. We then went inside and rode all around the arena—mostly at a walk since he was exhausted. After 15 minutes, he was totally desensitized in the indoor arena.



I gave him a day off and then tried Day 4. I waited until the arena was empty and the barn was quiet. Well, we were successful. He did try to run to the barn door on the first lap around, but when he found out that didn’t work, he behaved quite well. We worked on trotting on the scary end, and by the end of this ride, I was totally desensitized to the indoor arena.



The next couple rides fell on the weekend, so we managed to get a couple trail rides. Yesterday was Day 5 in the arena, and he was his old self—and so was I. We were able to work on our transitions and consistency with his trot. I am just so out of practice. This arena trotting is tough. His movement is just so big. The most I managed was one and a half laps before I would have to stop, pull myself back together and then start again. I made it a half hour and then headed outside to ride on the drive because it was such a pretty night.



Now that his mind is in the right place and my nerves have been calmed, maybe we can start having productive arena rides, again.