Riding Updates

So, for the past three days (and before then, too) I rode the Grets and it has gone swell. I have also learned and corrected two very critical things these past few days.

When we go to the left, particularly on a circle, I would ALWAYS let my right leg slip back. Like way back. And it was totally ineffective and did not balance Greta at all. So, I took away the stirrups, forced my right leg forward to be at the ready at the girth, et voila! She actually tried to bend around my inside leg without excessive persuasion from the reins.

Also, I noticed that when I open and closed my inside hand, I was accidentally pulling back and then releasing, which is why Greta would throw her head up and invert and not do anything. I actually open and closed my hand and she started to cooperate. She still won't round up without excessive persuasion, and I always lose the connection going from a walk to a halt (not really from a canter to trot though, hmm) so I don't know what I'm going to do about that except figure it out. I've tried giving her the reins a bit during the transition, and while she won't invert, she'll tip her nose out and still lose the connection. Perhaps I really land on her back during the transition. But either way it's obnoxious when you have a good connection from the walk going into the trot and then totally lose it going back into the walk and I have to excessively persuade her to get it back again.

I really don't like dressage sometimes. So very hard!

But really, Greta has been great and today we had a super nice canter (I've noticed that it's becoming ever so slightly more elevated over time and far from on the forehand like it used to be) so that was cause to reward her and to end the already hour-long ride (I had lunged her in side reins for about twenty minutes, then finished up the hour with riding) and bless her she let me pick up the longeline and side reins from their hanging spot on one of the arena fence posts (and she didn't even look at them while riding!) and carry them back to the barn, pass the scary wheelbarrows guarding the entrance to her stall aisle, down the barn aisle, toss them onto her tack trunk with a loud thump, and finish off cooling down in the covered arena (it's been below 90 lately so I thought today would be a good day to get back to that outdoor arena, and she was pretty good in it! No refusals to go to the scary end, nothing!) All while under saddle. So good!

I might just make a sensible horse out of her afterall ;)

I'll get video soon. I almost got it today but forgot to bring the camera out with me to the outdoor arena, on the other side of the property. Oh, it would just been too much walking, poor me!

I suppose the longer I wait, the more Greta and I will improve, and when you guys actually do see us again, Greta and I will blow your socks off and make the choir sing praises. Pretty soon, we might just being Michaelangelo from the grave to carve a sculpture of us, because that's just how awesome we'll be ;)