New Challenge

Instructor D said that she would like to see me ride Rhapsody and Surge on Wednesday, and possibly take some pictures for Rhapsody's sale ads. (Boo... :'( lol) Me being me, I promptly freaked out that the girls would turn into crazy monsters on Wednesday, so yesterday (Monday) I did a "dry run," pulling them both out and hopping on without groundwork or any other such thing besides a thorough grooming.

Rhapsody lived up to her recent loveliness and was a star. We had a nice relaxed walk and quite a lot of stretchy"ish" trot. I'm going to have to start picking her nose up a little before she rubs it raw dragging it in the dirt! ;) Canter is still a work in progress; she knows not to scoot into it like she's leaving the starting gate, but she doesn't know how to transition to canter without scooting. So right now she trots incredibly fast for a long, long time, and then canters rather awkwardly and can't sustain it. Lol. We'll be working on those trot-canter transitions a lot more now that her trot is solid and relaxed. Also I need to work on giving to the bit and backing up. She doesn't back much and I think that's an important skill every horse should be able to do some at least. And she needs to learn to change "gears" in canter, instead of just going as fast as she possibly can. So lots to work on, but she is being really lovely about it.

Surge however is going to be my new challenge. :) She was okay at walk and trot--not relaxed per se, but not scooty or spooky--so I asked for a canter. She transitioned, took about two strides, and promptly bucked. Then she threw her head down, snaked it around, and kicked out/bucked some more before I grabbed her and informed her no mas of that.  (Prior to that I was focused on staying on! lol) I brought her down to a trot, waited till she was a bit more relaxed, and tried again--same result. So I hopped off and lunged her to see if it was me doing something--nope, same thing. And I remembered that she'd done the same things without any tack on, so it wasn't a tack fit issue. Well well fun times. I got back on and did some more walk/trot without too much of an incident (just snaking her head around once or twice) and called it a day. Decided if instructor D wants to see her cantered on Wednesday, I can lunge her or D is quite welcome to canter her herself! ;)

Still pondering the best way to respond to that. A martingale of course is a quick fix for the head tossing, and I may yet do that just to help me stay on. But really she is just "pushing" me in all kinds of ways, in the saddle and out, so I think I need to do a lot more groundwork and walk/trot and work on respecting me. And forward work. She was occasionally balking at moving out even in trot. So we'll see just how to implement those ideas.  Thoughts welcome. :) For myself, my stupid lower leg was all over the place yesterday. Argh! I tend to lean towards a "chair seat" and my leg has a mind of its own I believe. I need some good two-point, standing in the stirrups, and no-stirrups posting trot to get it back in control!