Short and Sweet

I am a rider who generally has fairly long rides. They average about 53 minutes long. Throughout the years I have found that Kachina does well with long warmups, multiple repetitions, frequent long walk breaks and a long cool out, all of which adds up to a long ride. I don't ride every day and my rides do have a lot of breaks which limits the physical and mental demands. Kachina has a great work ethic so the long rides don't bore her or burn her out, and they give her time to release the tension she naturally has.

Last night I got to the barn later than normal so I only had time for a quick ride before the arena lights would automatically shut off and plunge us into darkness (it's happened to me before, it's a very effective way of making sure boarders don't overstay their welcome lol). It was a good ride, we worked on getting Kachina rounded and lifted and I worked on both my posting mechanic and my upper body position in sitting trot. We did all of that in 25 minutes.

The best ears
(It's blurry because her walk is pretty forward and active
and over her back even during cool out, can't complain about that!)

I looked at my watch after our first bit of really nice trot and realized that we were only 8 minutes into the ride! Progress seems glacial sometimes but the fact that Kachina and I could achieve similar quality work to our last lesson in only 8 minutes speaks volumes to how far we have come. I still like long slow warm-ups but we no longer need them. Mentally and physically Kachina knows her job and comes out ready to do it. My own aids are more effective and I need less time to communicate to Kachina what I am asking from her.

I tend to just do ground work or let Kachina loose in the arena on days where feel like I don't have enough time to ride, but I think I need to re-evaluate that, turns out we can have a great ride even when we are short on time.