BM dropped Mort of at the facility Tuesday around
midday. She left him happy with plenty
of hay and water. I got there
mid-afternoon and he seemed fairly settled.
He hadn’t eaten a ton of hay, but he didn’t seem too upset in any
way. I decided to bathe him and then
take him on a walk. He was a bit more
active during our bath, but nothing awful.
He kept making little, quiet squeals to express his displeasure. After that I took him out for a walk, I was
going to let him graze but he was entirely too distracted by the goats making
noise in the distance. He was a handful,
but he usually is after a bath—they always make him want to run around.
I tossed him back in his stall and he started eating hay, so
the walk helped relax him enough to eat more vigorously. I then went to audit some other riders in the
clinic. I got a neat exercise that
utilized leg yields on a square with turn on the forehand on the corners. Definitely something I want to try with Mort
to get him more inside leg to outside rein.
There was a break at 5:45, so before that I went back to tack Mort up so
that I could get him in the arena and then hop on him in the other arena to stretch
his legs. He has been in both arenas
before, especially the dressage arena as we took some lessons there this past
summer, but extra exposure never hurts.
While we waited for the other arena to be open (after the
lesson finished up) Mort got to see his first Saddlebreds. He thought they were moderately exciting, but
the real excitement came from seeing the cart.
He didn’t relax until that crazy thing left. He was definitely a bit more “up” than usual
but after some big, long trot he settled in.
This ride was mainly to stretch his legs and loosen up for
Wednesday. I did play a little bit with lengthenings
since riding in a big arena makes that easier.
I wanted to experiment with getting them and getting him back to his
working gait. He did fairly well, so I
think we’ll most likely try a first level test at a local schooling show toward
the end of this month. Other than that,
this ride was simple with some leg yields and shoulder-in at the walk and trot
and a few canter transitions each direction.
He was a good boy and nice and forward.
After the ride I cooled him out, fed him, put all my tack
away (I need a tack trunk so I don’t have to haul all my crap back and forth
from the trailer), and left him for the night.
We had some serious storms that night, but when I got there around 6:00
the next morning he seemed like he had a restful night. We hand walked for ten minutes, I cleaned his
stall, fed him, and left for work. A
couple hours later I left work and came back for him. We walked again and I hauled all my crap back
to the barn.
Our lesson was good.
The beginning we focused on my seat and really using it to drive
him. I really liked that the clinician’s
answer to Mort getting hollow was simply to ignore it and keep my aids on until
he figured it out on his own. We worked
on sitting and lengthening his stride, especially coming from his hind
end. By the end of this work he had
definitely rotated his pelvis underneath himself and was pushing well. I was exhausted from all of that ab work, but
made it through on my runner’s lung capacity.
The middle of the lesson was getting Mort in between my
lateral aids. We did bend and
counter-bend on a circle switching posting diagonals as we switched bend. This evolved into canter transitions where a
stride after we went back to true bend I’d ask for canter. This helped him from falling out in the
transitions. We also worked on asking
for the transition with ONLY my seat instead of seat and leg since he sometimes
kicks out at my leg. He struggled a
couple of times with prompt transitions, but I think it’s something he’ll
appreciate once he really gets it. We’ll
do more practice with them where I ask with my seat and if he doesn’t respond
back it up with my leg a stride or two later.
The last part of the ride we touched on some counter canter
with big figure eights. He wanted to
fall some and she had me sit up more and half-halt with the outside rein which
helped. I really like counter canter to
get better control of his shoulders.
The clinic was overall good.
I usually appreciate another set of eyeballs on me (and the price and
location were great). I didn’t have any
huge breakthroughs, but good work.
Essentially just continue doing what I’m doing while asking for more in
terms of gaits. Also, sit the F**k up
and use my lower back muscles more. I
also got to take Mort on our first overnight adventure and take note of how he
behaved and ate.
I’m really proud of how far Mort and I have come. He is getting more and more consistent and
most of the time when I ask him to step-up he happily does so. A year ago I was happy when he kept his
balance and steered well. Now we’re
working on some first and second level items (nowhere near ready to show
second, but we’re working on elements).
He’s a good pony and I’m glad we’ve turned this other page in our
training.
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