Yesterday I wasn't sure whether I was going to ride or not, but turns out I was, so yay. This week is midterms but I had already fried my brain studying so didn't feel bad about taking the evening off. ;)
Brought him in and tacked up, chatted with a girl I hadn't met before and her sweet 20-year-old horse, then went in the covered since it was getting dusky. Dropped my stirrups and spent about 15 minutes just at the walk, warming up. Still sore from my tiny bit of trot no-stirrups on Sunday, so wasn't doing that yet! Lots of leg yields, which he picked up on super fast as long as I also opened my outside hip to give him somewhere to go, haha. He still doesn't get the idea 100% but it was very passable. We started off just yielding back to the rail from a couple feet off, then gradually increased the distance; eventually we were even able to leg yield toward the quarter line from the rail! Yay us! Haha. Also someone had set up a mini-circle-of-death ground pole exercise so we walked over that, did lots of circles and figure 8's. Then we moved up to the trot. I didn't ask for a lot, kept a loose rein, let him cruise and try to find his balance while I worked on mine. Trotted about 5 minutes in each direction, with a long walk break in between. Halted and asked for a turn on the forehand in the scary corner, he did good for not really understanding it under saddle yet. After our second trot I half-halted hard and what do you know, he came right down into walk in 2-3 strides! GOOD BOY!! Walked out a bit, half-halted hard again and just barely picked up the reins, and (with a bit of repetition) he actually stopped!
Big pats and praises, took him in for his grain. Blankets tonight--it's chilly a couple days now. Popping back up into the above-freezing-nights zone on Friday, though.
Maybe ride today, not sure, I'll be in schools all day and usually come back exhausted from that, then I have a ton of tests to grade and my fall semester schedule to plan, so we might have today be our lunge day. Friday he gets his shots and check-up, so no ride then. :)
What a good report! He's a bright boy, so just keep at it, moving "from strength to strength." ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement :) He tries so so hard, I just need to be patient and let him figure things out!
DeleteA good exercise for learning lateral work is having them walk straight on the rail, then push their hips over to angle their shoulder towards the rail. You can gradually ask for more and more angle, but just a little is fine to begin with. And then ask them to move off of your outside leg. The rail helps keep them straight and figure out that they need to cross over their legs and move diagonally. Even one or two steps at first is good and then you reward them by letting them go straight and asking again. At least that's what my trainer had me do to start Wiz and I think it really helped :)
ReplyDeleteSounds like things are going well though :)
Hmm sounds like a good exercise! Have to try it sometime--thanks! :)
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