mallt | Tonight's ride (Reply)

Well after the last experience I decided to lunge Ariel a few times before riding her again... seems like it paid off because tonight's ride was like riding my 12 y/o well trained horse again... I was very happy!

We started just walking large both directions so I could gauge her reactions as we went past both the scary-door at one end & scary-jumps at the other... rinse & repeat at trot... she looked, flicked an ear but listened to my inside leg & ignored both... AWESOME!

I then worked her at trot, circles at A & C ends as well as in the middle, both directions, concentrating on keeping my hands soft but fingers closed, not letting her get heavy, leaning on my hands or locked through the neck. When she was misbehaving last time my reaction was to tense up & fix my arms which allowed her to lock her neck & evade me.

After circles I worked on big 3 loop serpentines the length of the arena, working on asking for bend with my body and legs rather than hands. I then tightened up the bend by asking for 3 small circles from C to A & back again down the middle of the arena... completing each circle before moving onto the next (1 1/2 rotations on each). Once we were doing that with decent balance I went from once circle to the next (1/2 rotation) making a 3 loop serpentine without the straight parts across the width of the arena. I ended the bend work with a 4 loop serpentine using the whole of the arena, tight bends but with straight work across the width.

To finish of we did some collection along the short sides & lengthening along the long sides. I was very happy with the results as I managed to change the trot just by changing the tempo & size of my rising. This is something I struggled with when I was learning to ride... I would bounce up & down at whatever speed the pony decided to go... the instructor would say "slow your rising, don't rise as high" to slow the trot & all I could think was "how?" I felt I had no control of my rising I just went up & down as I got pushed out of the saddle. It took me a long time to figure out how to use my core & legs in unison to control how high & how fast I came out of the saddle... I think it's something that's easier to learn on a horse than a pony as ponies' gaits are so fast it's all you can do to keep up with them sometimes! :)

After the extension/collection work we came back to walk, I gave her a long rein & let her cool down, not that she was hot or sweating but she was huffing a bit, as was I... both of us need more saddle time!

Her reward for being awesome was 4 home grown carrots from the garden... 1 of which was huge!

Those of you who don't talk horse... if you want anything explained, please ask! :)