Riding today...

My plan was to ride Rafiki today for a reasonable length of time. BUT she looked a bit stiff and sore when trotting - she had been bouncing around the arena bucking and cavorting so maybe she has twisted something. She seemed to ease up a bit with excecise and didn't object to the saddle so I thought a walk would be ok. I walked for maybe 10-15 minutes, practising soft direct and indirect rein - not too much incase her back was sore, but enough for a little bend. She was a little 'teeth gnashing' on the first indirect but once she realised what we were doing she licked and chewed softly. Then we got some nicer turns - quite wide at first so she didn't panic or get sore - think she needs to do a LOT of this with lots of walk inbetween. She got in a muddle and offered one trot (not that sore then but she is very willing to try and I didn't want to take advantage of that) but immediately came back to walk when I asked.
As I had a bit of time still I thought I'd have a play with Cam and see how she was. She was really tuned in so we only did a couple of hq yields and I popped the bareback pad on and looped the 12ft up and rode around seeing 'how little did it take' to stop, turn etc. Mostly we managed with no rein at all - so pleased!! She is amazingly sensitive after Rafiki - and we have better communication after 6 years....or is it 7 now. As she is RBI but was very LB we stayed in walk - leave trot for another time - although I would have loved a trot - she felt SO soft and willing and tuned in. She offered lateral flexion and reached right around and touched the back of the bareback pad around my leg...allowing me to stroke her face...so different to the horse taht couldn't even have her face stroked with a slightly bent neck a year ago.... we were able to turn and bend around cones with me just bending my body and looking down at the cones.

I think I will ride them both from now on, keeping it low key and very slow with Cam t0 keep her relaxed, just incase Rafiki isn't 100% sound. Hopefully this will improve my riding by riding both of them...Then I'll have a choice of 2 to send my dvd in on for the instructor course - I am a lot more hopeful of being able to complete my L3 freestyle maybe even by August or before with Cam the way she was today. .