Also, the long awaited
After almost a month of saying that we'd ride together, I still didn't get to ride with the new boarder this weekend. Instead, she stayed after she rode to help me out. Sometime while I was finishing up with the pasture, she managed to catch her horse and get to the indoor without me noticing, so it was a surprise to see her when I took Baby out.
Queen B was feeling forward, probably due to the fact that she hasn't been ridden regularly in a few weeks (Miss S has no more lessons in December). I guess it helped a bit because she wanted to be forward, but we kept passing that line between energetic walk and a jig. We worked on the bottom tiers of the training pyramid: consistent forward motion with energy (rhythm), suppleness, bending (which tied into the suppleness), and contact (also tied into the suppleness).
We did a lot of work at the trot with lots of circles, but the idea was that I needed to take what I was doing in the circles and apply it on the rail so that my corners actually look like corners. Once in a blue moon, I can actually see a circle and do it correctly. I was doing more of a lumpy egg shape than a circle. She also had me do a spiral, and I think I got down to a 10m circle when she told me to try something smaller, so I went to a 9.9m circle. That's something to work on.
We also did canter work, which ended up being a lot better than I expected, minus the corners going to the right and that one long side of the arena that has hay at the end which caused an unplanned change in tempo. We did the same ~20m circle to the left and the right. Just as we were doing our last circle before cool-out, Baby broke. One more extra circle for us, then we were done.
Queen B was feeling forward, probably due to the fact that she hasn't been ridden regularly in a few weeks (Miss S has no more lessons in December). I guess it helped a bit because she wanted to be forward, but we kept passing that line between energetic walk and a jig. We worked on the bottom tiers of the training pyramid: consistent forward motion with energy (rhythm), suppleness, bending (which tied into the suppleness), and contact (also tied into the suppleness).
We did a lot of work at the trot with lots of circles, but the idea was that I needed to take what I was doing in the circles and apply it on the rail so that my corners actually look like corners. Once in a blue moon, I can actually see a circle and do it correctly. I was doing more of a lumpy egg shape than a circle. She also had me do a spiral, and I think I got down to a 10m circle when she told me to try something smaller, so I went to a 9.9m circle. That's something to work on.
We also did canter work, which ended up being a lot better than I expected, minus the corners going to the right and that one long side of the arena that has hay at the end which caused an unplanned change in tempo. We did the same ~20m circle to the left and the right. Just as we were doing our last circle before cool-out, Baby broke. One more extra circle for us, then we were done.
the jig is my nemesis. ugh i hate hate hate jigging. my mare pulls it out on the trails when she wants to be free... not realizing that she can walk faster than she can jig... /rant - glad Baby was good tho!
ReplyDeletelol Baby would jig forever if I let her. Western Pleasure all the time :P
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