Last week was a theory lesson (discussing training methods and horse behaviour) and this week Ulrika was missing in action after an encounter with a rusty knife. So, we had a substitute and we did some strengthening exercises for us riders.
This basically involved starting out with what we thought were stirrups for jumping and successively shortening them until they really were. ;P Seems all of us had gotten used to jumping with rather long stirrups. I know I have from riding smaller horses, because really short stirrups for jumping makes me feel too tall. But, actually, it didn’t feel so bad on Heddvig with four holes shorter than usual. Although, it was a bit hard to follow her jumps from trot like that and to help her find her canter after the jump. But just galloping her like that worked quite well, and she once again managed a pretty nicely balanced and not too fast canter for several laps on a circle.
My legs also managed just fine, and no sore muscles the next day. I’ve got pretty fabulous thigh muscles, it seems. ;)