So that was actually from last Saturday, but real life kept me from updating the blog! My friend and I rode all the way up to the barn closing hour (10:00) Saturday night. No heavy work, just riding and chatting. As you can imagine, Greta was thrilled with that. She could be something more productive, like grazing.
I did not have time to do any serious riding for the rest of the week, but she was turned out all day except for being brought in to eat, so that was good. She was lunged Wednesday night in preparation for our Thursday lesson.
The Thursday lesson went splendidly! She was very good all the way up until she decided that she had trot enough (like three twenty meter circles, poor thing!) and slowed to a walk (which I could've stop) and refused to go any faster. So, we had to bring out the dressage whip :(
I really hate using the whip! She doesn't get tapped even, it's just there for her to see, but I don't want to come to rely on the whip. Nonetheless, she continued on doing as well as she had been doing before. She was already doing well, she just lost motivation I guess! Looking at her in the mirror, she was beautiful! She was accepting the bit and reaching for it, having a really nice working trot, and flexxing nicely on our half-halts at the walk (they were very exaggerated half-halts, and on purpose, we literally stopped and when she flexed and accepted the bit the reward was an immediate release and a few steps of free walk). By the end of the night I wished we could've jump into an Intro Level test!
Tonight we did a similar routine, except for not as long because it rained for about three days straight here, and now's it's stopped and it's sunny again (I love it when it's sunny but still cool enough to wear a sweater, my fav weather, Greta's too because she can get all frisky!) so thus the only open area to ride is the indoor arena and it got crowded pretty quickly, also she did just so damn awesome that by the time the third rider came in (she was lunging a green rider, very green from what I saw so I figured it'd be best if I gave them some room) I figured she done well so her reward was to end the session early.
The girl was a little smartass when we first started out. After warming up at a walk I had us work on our half-halts. Instead of just flexing for the bit like she did Thursday she went all out and flexed her head all the way down between her knees. I figured that perhaps I was asking too hard, but nope, she did it with soft hands too! I made my seat cues firmer, and that fixed the problem along with me flicking the whip out to the side for her to see. (She probably thought "crap she really does mean business!") It was cute though.
Once we got the flexing for and accepting the bit and half-halt bit down we went on to the trot. She was very eager, so initially it was something that resembled a Standardbred race, so I had to bring her into "the circle" lol and her trot improved significantly. We went for another round about the arena and then did a twenty-ish meter circle at one end, changed rein and did another in the middle, and changed rein and did a final one at the far end. I could really feel her accepting the bit in my hand and I could see her being to straighten out with all of these curves. It was beautiful!
BEAUTIFUL!
So I brought her to a free walk and gave her a big pat and "Good girls!" and after that third rider came into arena with green rider, and I figured that Greta did well enough that we could just cool down a bit more and call it a night.
I love that Greta girly.
In other news, I sent in my USDF 2010 membership and Greta's USDF Lifetime Horse Registration, which means I decided on a show name: GretaKvena! Hopefully all will go well as they did with the ownership transfer with SWANA (yes, it was a successful transfer and I'm expecting the papers back in this week!) I'm very excited for next year!
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