Untitled Post :)

Nothing incredibly new on the horse front. :) Apparently instructor D either forgot or decided not to watch us ride on Wednesday, so the girls and I were all by ourselves while her lessons worked in the big pasture and the jump arena. So I put in 45 minutes on Rhapsody, with a nice long walk warm up, a lot of trot, and some canter transitions. I started letting her reach down a fair ways, then gently holding the reins with an elastic contact, and frequently she stayed there "on" the bit (not really on the bit, but accepting it nicely) for several strides. Also discovered that her canter is "lofty" and free-moving enough that I may have been accidentally letting her canter on the wrong lead--just glancing down, you see front hooves on both sides! Oops! Of course I should be able to just feel for the leads, but I can't always. I make excuses that she's too unbalanced, and that's true, but still. I need to improve my feel for both diagonals and leads. But, first of all, make sure she's going on the right lead to begin with! We don't want to start bad habits on both our parts!

Rhapsody did, however, get a nice compliment from my friend R, who although two years younger than me, is a much better rider (or I think he is anyway), and a trainer in his own right. So I was pleased with that. I'm tickled to bits with her progress, but it's nice to hear that other people can see it too! I wonder if that trot will ever get old. I suppose when we "harness" her canter, that will be pretty amazing too, but right now it's a ways from getting harnessed in any way. ;) Think warhorse Arabian thundering across desert sands--flagging tail and all. Hehe silly goose. For now we ride it, and play with half-halts. Happily she just likes to go, and so we have almost no problems with bucking or otherwise goofing off in canter.

Surge got some groundwork and was very good until she spooked and then decided to put on her best snorty-fiery-halter-horse impersonation. Heh. So I turned her loose in the empty arena and told her to get it out of her system. She gallumphed around a bit, snorting at me whenever she stopped (why at me, silly girl, I'm not the one who spooked you!) and then I caught her and we did a bit more groundwork and went up to the barn without running over anyone. I'm still on the fence about how to best get her to calm down--whether to encourage her to run and goof off and get it out of her system (when possible of course), or to focus on calm, steady, "staying-still" work. I'll just have to experiment with it I guess. Probably some of both and I'll just have to figure out how much is too much on either count. Finding things to really keep her mind busy would help too I think.