I had a lesson lined up on Mort Saturday morning. I got out there early and brushed out and
washed his tail (because it was about 60 degrees and sunny). The ponies had been stuck inside again Friday
and I had asked BM to leave Mort in for me Saturday morning because I hate
dealing with muddy Mort. Needless to say
that Mort was a touch antsy when I was tacking him up. I decided to do a short lunge before our
lesson to set us up for success. He got
a couple of expressive canter departs out of his system and I jumped on.
We started with our regular warm-up of walking and moving
off of my leg into big, straight trot work.
I am really enjoying playing with him going straight then bending then
straight. I also touch on some “forward
and back” of letting the stride lengthen and shorten when I ask. All of his warm-up trot is done posting and
it a longer, lower frame just letting his body move.
After this, we did a little canter work. Mort listens fairly well on the long sides to
my seat and legs, but when we get to the short sides he thinks he can take over
and just falls to the inside through the turns.
To try and combat this BM said to cut off a bit of the end and yield him
out as we go on the short side to really illustrate to him that he does have
space to do that and listen to my leg.
She also corrected my awful position—as when Mort doesn’t listen to my
inside leg my response is to squish up that whole side of my body. It doesn’t make my leg stronger, it makes my
seat ineffective, and it throws him more off-balance. Naturally it is my go-to in times of trouble—because
the human body is the most frustrating when riding horses.
The goal Saturday was to try and run through parts of some
tests. Mort and I haven’t ridden a test
since our last show (in April), so I really needed to assess where we were in
terms of showing this spring. I looked
over some tests and decided that I really liked Training 2 and First 2. Overall I was very happy with Mort. He stayed with me mentally throughout the whole
ride in spite of not having been ridden in that style for a long time. I was concerned that the halts, speed of
transitions (direction, gait, etc.), and the canters were going to be our
problems. They were the problems, but
not as big of problems as I thought they would be (yay).
He came into our first halt a touch crooked and he wanted to
dance. I think that me throwing in a few
halts every ride should fix this problem easily enough as it totally stemmed
from anticipation. The indoor at the
barn is smaller than a small dressage arena, so the transitions really come at
you quickly compared to “real life”. It
should really make us feel like we have lots of time when we get to a standard
arena. In the training level test, our
biggest problem transition-wise was the medium walk-free walk-medium walk-trot. By the time I started to get stretch in the
walk it was time to collect him up again which definitely threw us off a
bit. The canter went a lot better than I
expected! He maintained a consistent
bend in the circles and came down to trot well for me when asked. I was really proud of him and how much better
he is getting at letting me adjust his canter.
The final halt was square and quicker than the first, so I’m happy with
that improvement as well.
The First 2 test was not easy to accomplish in the small
indoor, so we just broke it down into parts to make it work—which definitely
still achieves the purpose of being a gauge on where we are for showing. We need to play with lengthening on the
diagonal more as I tend to do it on the long sides. I also want to play with some quicker
transitions out of and back into the canter (canter across diagonal, trot at X,
canter again in the corner). I don’t
think we’re quite ready for the canter, trot, canter at X that First 3 has, but
I think First 1 and 2 would be manageable—though probably not fantastic in the
fancy factor. The canter work that we
ran through in the tests made him not blow through my leg on the short sides
for the rest of the ride either, so that was a major win.
Essentially, I think if we touch up on our problem areas in
the next couple of months we might be ready for a first level test at a local
schooling show in the end of March. If I
can get some more exciting lengthenings (perhaps trying them outside in the hay
field to get some more space). If I
throw a lot of transitions at him and he can handle them calmly and
listen. If I halt a few times each
ride. If we work more on walk
transitions (between medium and free).
If all of these things come together and he feels confident and
comfortable in all of them—then we’ll show first. If not, we’ll go for training. I’m just excited that we’re finally coming
along.
Sunday Mort got a bareback easy ride then a massage. He was much better for it and actually let
her work on his hind end this time. I
definitely think he’ll have more in his future.
If they can make him happy and relaxed they’re good in my book.
Now I just hope that sometime soon the world outside isn’t a
damn puddle.
No comments:
Post a Comment