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dancing_crowLong hard lesson on a verry fancy horse.
A TB/Warmblood mare, she has ongoing issues with getting her right hock under her (legitimate, physical limitations associated with her stifle) and hates hates HATES contact. The teacher had me thinking Ghost Horse, and Ghost Rider (appropriate for this time of year) and trying to see how light I could be with my hands. After the small triumph with the red horse last week, not-pulling when she was leaning on me so hard, I had some basis to think about this. Oddly, she was much kinder about my seat and legs; either I was doing well with them, or she cares less about contact from legs than contact in her mouth.
She had huge movement, so I spent a lot of my trotting time and all my cantering time feeling like unwashed laundry in the saddle. After a lot of work asking (by breathing on the the rein, honestly! but a lot of leg) for a little bend one way and then the other, yield into the circle and yield out of the circle, we got a much easier trot to sit. Lani says if you squeeze the horse's shoulders with your thighs it will slow down. This worked, in concert with using my back, but it popped me out of the saddle in an unhappy way. I have to ask her about that. But since I couldn't use my hands (she'd bolt) I had to use thighs and back for down transitions. We got some astounding collected-ish trots, and when I unleashed her for lengthening across the diagonal it felt like the Chinese flying horse from the MFA We managed some pretty nice canter departs from that same collected-ish trot, although I felt like I was flopping and banging in the saddle (and I kept losing my stirrup) Lani said it wasn't as awful as it felt. I actually had to grab for the bucking strap a couple of times. It was strange to feel so utterly uncoordinated at one moment and then so THERE at the next. Clearly I have work to do.
A TB/Warmblood mare, she has ongoing issues with getting her right hock under her (legitimate, physical limitations associated with her stifle) and hates hates HATES contact. The teacher had me thinking Ghost Horse, and Ghost Rider (appropriate for this time of year) and trying to see how light I could be with my hands. After the small triumph with the red horse last week, not-pulling when she was leaning on me so hard, I had some basis to think about this. Oddly, she was much kinder about my seat and legs; either I was doing well with them, or she cares less about contact from legs than contact in her mouth.
She had huge movement, so I spent a lot of my trotting time and all my cantering time feeling like unwashed laundry in the saddle. After a lot of work asking (by breathing on the the rein, honestly! but a lot of leg) for a little bend one way and then the other, yield into the circle and yield out of the circle, we got a much easier trot to sit. Lani says if you squeeze the horse's shoulders with your thighs it will slow down. This worked, in concert with using my back, but it popped me out of the saddle in an unhappy way. I have to ask her about that. But since I couldn't use my hands (she'd bolt) I had to use thighs and back for down transitions. We got some astounding collected-ish trots, and when I unleashed her for lengthening across the diagonal it felt like the Chinese flying horse from the MFA We managed some pretty nice canter departs from that same collected-ish trot, although I felt like I was flopping and banging in the saddle (and I kept losing my stirrup) Lani said it wasn't as awful as it felt. I actually had to grab for the bucking strap a couple of times. It was strange to feel so utterly uncoordinated at one moment and then so THERE at the next. Clearly I have work to do.
