Lovecat
5th Feb 2004, 12:30 PM
I've bored my OH rigid talking about this, now it's your turn!:p
Last night was my first lesson since I got concussed in early Jan - a combination of circs has meant that my instructor hasn't been able to fit me in since then and I was rather nervous, especially as it was still blowing a gale and all last week the Murph had been on his toes with the high wind/lack of exercise (my fault entirely, work was mad and I couldn't get down to see to him - he's on the horsewalker every day but it doesn't really get the edge off!).
Anyway, I got down there early and had a nice long grooming session with him, then saddled him up and off we went. The YO (my instructor) commented on how nice he was looking now and how well he'd filled out in the last 3 months - she was just saying that he looked very full of himself today when - tempting fate! - the wind rustled some bushes by the side of the school and he bounced sideways and tried to take off in gallop:eek: . I've found my confidence has been quite low since my fall and I'm still trying to get myself back in the swing of things...
Anyway, I pulled him up (he listens to me in the school.... :rolleyes: ) and YO said 'okay, if he wants to run about, we'll MAKE him run about' and had me trot circles at the slightly-less-scary end of the school for what felt like half an hour on each rein (aargh!) - at first he was trying to power off with me each time we went near the scary bush, but I managed to keep him in check and eventually he started going really nicely.
We leg-yielded in and out of the circles so that he was moving towards said scary bush while keeping his head bent away from it - he's not the bendiest boy in the world but he did really well.
And then we tried for canter. I've posted before about Murphy and his 'issues' with canter in the school - he didn't seem to know what I was asking him for when he first got here and he's had to learn the command kind of from scratch. He's been getting better, but has never cantered more than halfway down one side of the school before hitting trot again - my immediate goal is to canter him past the gate, after that, all around the school... Anyway, we had thought his right rein was his better one, so I set off in that direction and pushed him off. He went into it beautifully. Now, the YO has told me in the past that, while we're trying to get him into canter, not to fret too much over his steering, just to try and encourage him to keep going. So when he veered a little to the right I wasn't too bothered, being mainly occupied in trying to keep him going. Then I realised that he was keeping on going, just heading directly for the YO!
She got out of the way:o and we tried for it again, this time I was keeping a much tighter grip on the inside rein. Well... what a lovely canter! He kept it going down the long side and along the bottom, just petered out at the gate (nearly came out the side door when he turned the corner but hey!), and such a nice pace...:D Then we went on the left rein and OMG it was even better!! He was SO good, it was like a lightbulb's gone on in his brain and he understands what I'm asking him for (that or he was still full of beans after all the trotting!)...
Anyway, to cool down, we did something I haven't done before, called a three loop circle (or a 3 circle loop, not too sure of the name!) which was kind of like a serpentine only in straight lines:
A
start -----------------
|
| K
-----------------
|
B | E
------------------
|
|
end ------------------
C
(edit: that worked fine in preview but it hasn't come out in posting...)
If that makes sense and he did it beautifully on each rein! On the last two goes he was actually dropping into a contact! My YO was really impressed with how he's improved in his responses to me (it takes quite a bit to get a compliment out of her!).
She even said that the next lesson we have together she's going to stop looking so hard at how he's working under me and start critcising my riding again.......:rolleyes: :p
Sorry this is such an essay, I just needed to tell some more people about it who might actually be interested!!;)
Last night was my first lesson since I got concussed in early Jan - a combination of circs has meant that my instructor hasn't been able to fit me in since then and I was rather nervous, especially as it was still blowing a gale and all last week the Murph had been on his toes with the high wind/lack of exercise (my fault entirely, work was mad and I couldn't get down to see to him - he's on the horsewalker every day but it doesn't really get the edge off!).
Anyway, I got down there early and had a nice long grooming session with him, then saddled him up and off we went. The YO (my instructor) commented on how nice he was looking now and how well he'd filled out in the last 3 months - she was just saying that he looked very full of himself today when - tempting fate! - the wind rustled some bushes by the side of the school and he bounced sideways and tried to take off in gallop:eek: . I've found my confidence has been quite low since my fall and I'm still trying to get myself back in the swing of things...
Anyway, I pulled him up (he listens to me in the school.... :rolleyes: ) and YO said 'okay, if he wants to run about, we'll MAKE him run about' and had me trot circles at the slightly-less-scary end of the school for what felt like half an hour on each rein (aargh!) - at first he was trying to power off with me each time we went near the scary bush, but I managed to keep him in check and eventually he started going really nicely.
We leg-yielded in and out of the circles so that he was moving towards said scary bush while keeping his head bent away from it - he's not the bendiest boy in the world but he did really well.
And then we tried for canter. I've posted before about Murphy and his 'issues' with canter in the school - he didn't seem to know what I was asking him for when he first got here and he's had to learn the command kind of from scratch. He's been getting better, but has never cantered more than halfway down one side of the school before hitting trot again - my immediate goal is to canter him past the gate, after that, all around the school... Anyway, we had thought his right rein was his better one, so I set off in that direction and pushed him off. He went into it beautifully. Now, the YO has told me in the past that, while we're trying to get him into canter, not to fret too much over his steering, just to try and encourage him to keep going. So when he veered a little to the right I wasn't too bothered, being mainly occupied in trying to keep him going. Then I realised that he was keeping on going, just heading directly for the YO!
She got out of the way:o and we tried for it again, this time I was keeping a much tighter grip on the inside rein. Well... what a lovely canter! He kept it going down the long side and along the bottom, just petered out at the gate (nearly came out the side door when he turned the corner but hey!), and such a nice pace...:D Then we went on the left rein and OMG it was even better!! He was SO good, it was like a lightbulb's gone on in his brain and he understands what I'm asking him for (that or he was still full of beans after all the trotting!)...
Anyway, to cool down, we did something I haven't done before, called a three loop circle (or a 3 circle loop, not too sure of the name!) which was kind of like a serpentine only in straight lines:
A
start -----------------
|
| K
-----------------
|
B | E
------------------
|
|
end ------------------
C
(edit: that worked fine in preview but it hasn't come out in posting...)
If that makes sense and he did it beautifully on each rein! On the last two goes he was actually dropping into a contact! My YO was really impressed with how he's improved in his responses to me (it takes quite a bit to get a compliment out of her!).
She even said that the next lesson we have together she's going to stop looking so hard at how he's working under me and start critcising my riding again.......:rolleyes: :p
Sorry this is such an essay, I just needed to tell some more people about it who might actually be interested!!;)