I rode Stevie today!

So, today was my first “real” ride on Stevie

I rode him for about 45 mins and he was pretty good. We warmed up walk / trot trying to get him to soften and bend, he would be very good for about 1/4 of the ring and then would lose his focus and lean on the bit, but he’s pretty easy to bring back so I’m hoping with more consistent work things will improve. He’s easier to keep soft and relaxed doing circles, I think because he likes to bend and if you try to keep him engaged and straight down the longside he wants to just stick his nose out and power ahead. He has a great forward walk, but does tend to suck back when you take up contact so I’m going to have to work on that. His trot work is pretty solid, but his trot/walk transitions leave something to be desired. We worked on those for a bit at the end and I think he’ll get them pretty quickly – he tries really hard and isn’t at all sour about working. His canter work is a little iffy, I think he just doesn’t have the muscles to balance himself right now so we’ll keep working on that – hopefully when we can ride outside and do some hill work he’ll build up his muscles more quickly! He tends to lean in at the canter, but we got a few nice strides here and there. I did a lot of canter/trot/canter transitions and I think transitions will play a big role in our rides in the foreseeable future.

I played around with my stirrups, rode with them at a comfortable length and then shortened them up to work on my balance. I definitely need to improve my fitness and strength, so tomorrow I think I will do a lot of two- point. I really wish we could ride outside, but I think I’ll start in with the trot sets in the indoor – it’s big enough that it won’t feel like circle, circle, circle and at least that way we’ll both be improving our fitness (I’ll be doing these in two-point) so when we can go outside we can really get cracking on some hills.

I noticed my inside hand was getting a little puppy dog paw-ish today, so I need to stay aware of that, but I felt like my leg and seat was much better – it’s so nice to ride a horse that doesn’t need GO, GO, GO every stride to keep a rhythm.

dressage lesson – happy!

I had a fantastic dressage lesson with Sarah today. We worked on really getting William bent around my leg and using his whole body. It was a lot of inside leg to outside hand to establish bend and push his barrel over so his whole body would bend and also outside leg to outside hand to keep him on the bit. I had to work on keeping my inside hand very still (it tends to like to take & give) and use my inside leg to push into the bend, rather than just bending his nose with that inside hand. We worked on changing direction in a figure 8 and also by going across the diagonals (harder because of the longer “straight”) and I really had to think about keeping the bend for the way we were going, then being straight for a step or two (or across most of the diagonal) and then shifting my hands and body to establish the new direction. It was difficult, but it felt 100x better when we got it because instead of having a few strides of “which way are we going, head up, rhythm lost” at the change, it felt balanced and smooth and William stayed engaged. We did a little canter work going his bad direction and I have a tendency to try to push him around the circle with my outside leg, but when I was firm in my outside rein contact and pushed him with my inside leg it made all the difference in the world, instead of bulging to the outside, he bent around my inside leg and had some really beautiful moments.

Sarah was encouraging, saying that I ride William really well and he’s the perfect type of horse for me (and physically he’s so different to Stevie, so that should be interesting!) and William was a perfect gentleman like always. It felt really good to get things right and see the difference correcting my position and aids made.

I’m really hoping when I get established with Stevie I can work out taking him to another farm where Sarah teaches to have some lessons on him, but I’ll have to wait and see how that works out.

And, just a little anecdote about how wonderful William is: he typically stands resting one hind leg and I always had to ask him to shift his weight and stand squarely when I went to put the saddle on (by pushing him over or tickling his tummy) and now when I approach him holding the saddle he automatically shifts so that he is standing squarely – what a smart pony!

a horse to ride!

So I went and tried my friend’s horse today… I loved him and starting next week will be riding him regularly. The pessimistic side of my brain is still warning the happy side of my brain that this could all go belly up, but I’m really looking forward to having a horse to ride on a regular basis.

He’s a chestnut OTTB gelding, about 16 hh, 13 years old named Stevie. He’s so cute and just kind of an “ok let’s try it” guy – at least that was my impression of him today. He’s evented through Novice with his owner and plays polocrosse and pretty much does whatever you want. He’s pretty out of shape right now, but I’m looking forward to getting him in regular work and seeing how he looks when he’s fit. Hopefully the footing will dry out a little and I can ride him outside soon. He’s really light in the bridle, which is a strange feeling for me since I usually ride heeeavy, leaning, pulling horses. He’s not insanely forward, but I think with more fitness he’ll be more forward and it’s SO nice not to have to push for every single stride. I popped him over some small jumps today and wow I almost fell off! He really cracks his back over everything (even the crossrail) so I think I need to really work on my fitness and seat/legs before we tackle any substantial jumps… hopefully by the time his fitness has improved mine will have as well… Anyway, I’m so excited and I really hope everything goes well!

And on another positive note, tomorrow (er, later today? haha) I am taking a dressage lesson with Sarah, hopefully my new positive outlook will inspire to me to get back to posting more regularly.

I’m going to try to take some picture of Stevie when I go out on Monday so I can compare “before” and “after” shots of now and then later when I have him more fit.

Also, the weather was glorious today and that really does improve my mood!

frustrated

So, I haven’t been updating this like I should be… I have been riding and it hasn’t been going horribly, but I am so, so frustrated right now. I feel like my position is awful and I really want someone to FIX it or at least give me the tools to fix it and that just doesn’t seem to be happening. I feel like with my whole riding career once I could do things, it no longer really mattered how I did them or what it looked like as long as I did them. I feel like this would be the best time to work on my position because I’m not trying to train a horse at the same time, I’m just riding, but no one who has lesson horses in the area seems to be the kind of trainer that focuses on position and nit picky little things. I do really like the barn I am riding at and the horses are so nice there, but I guess I want something more serious, which I am not going to find especially without my own horse.

On a positive note, I might be half leasing a horse soon! I am going to try him tomorrow and will update with how it goes and whether or not I will be riding him. I’m also currently playing phone tag with a woman who might want me to ride her horse when she can’t. Hopefully with  more time to ride I can work on correcting my position more… maybe if I get someone to video me or something I can do it myself…

lesson

Had my weekly lesson tonight… I think it went pretty well. I felt kind of sloppy in the warm up, and when we cantered without stirrups, especially when I had trouble finding my stirrups again at the canter. But then we started on a ground pole exercise with 5 poles, we cantered through them and William was really good. We did this each way, then added a small vertical instead of the second pole when going to the right (or the 4th pole when going to the left). William was really good to the right. We struggled a little going to the left because I was getting him too deep into the corner and making too square of a turn to the poles, but once I got that sorted out he was much better balanced and it felt good! After that we did some trot work without stirrups, during which time I felt like I was just bouncing all over poor William’s back. I really need to work my sitting trot and no stirrup work.

I’m hoping that I am not working (or working early in the morning) next Friday so I can have another lesson with Sarah!

dressage lesson

I had a half hour dressage lesson with Sarah Duclos today. We worked on shoulder in/fore/leg yielding down the longside kind of. It wasn’t really a proper shoulder in, but rather just getting William bent to the inside, pushing his barrel out going to the left which is his harder direction. William was a little ouchy so we did this at the walk with a little bit of canter work. We had two poles set up in an L and did turn on the forehand from the long side of the L around to opposite the short side, then one more step so his haunches were out and then pushed him down the long side. When I got him in the proper position and he was truly bent around my leg and stepping up and over then I would push him into the canter, canter a circle and then try to get that same feeling of bend and ask him to walk. We never really got the canter – walk transition, but our canter departs felt really nice.

I was told repeatedly to lengthen my reins and bend my elbows! Ugh it’s such a bad habit of mine to shorten my reins with my arms straight which in turn causes me to have no give in my arms and also to tip forward. It felt really good when I was sitting up with my reins longer and my elbows bent so hopefully I can recreate that in my lessons. I also have a tendency to put my leg on and just leave it on which makes my leg creep up so I need to work on that.

Hopefully I’ll get to have another lesson with Sarah again soon so I can continue to improve… It’s frustrating for me to struggle so much with basics when I’ve been riding for so long, but I am just happy to finally feel like I am learning correctly and hopefully next time I have  a horse I will be able to ride it much more effectively!

lesson

Lesson tonight went pretty well. We did the normal warm up and William was good, although I think he was used in an earlier lesson so he was extra sleepy tonight! Then we worked over poles and cross rails, working mostly on steering. It was set up sort of like this:

X

/

|               X

\

X

So we did a lot of changing direction and the outside X’s were placed so you either had a long approach or a really short approach off a turn. William went much better at the beginning, but as he began to get more and more tired I just didn’t have the leg to get him not to chip in at everything in spite of really trying to create a good forward canter. I did feel much more balanced in the warm up, especially double posting so hopefully some of my muscles are starting to strengthen! I definitely need to work on keeping my hands quieter (not posting with them), my thumbs up and my fingers closed! I have a tendancy to feel like I am too disorganized so I should open my fingers lest I catch a horse in the mouth, but I am just being counterproductive.

I really want my own horse!

Lesson with Sally Cousins!

Yesterday I had my lesson with Sally Cousins. It went really well and was a lot of fun. I was a little nervous to be riding with someone of that caliber, but she was really nice and encouraging. We jumped the highest that I have on William or for several years for that matter, but it was still only about 2’6″ I would say, maybe 2’9″. The jumps were set like this:

—–   /     \   ===

X

We did a lot of combinations, like over the X, bending line either direction, then over an outside jump, across the diagonal over a vertical, then down over the other outside jump, always reversing directions and really just mixing it up a lot. We had one messy round when William started to get tired and I wasn’t using enough leg and creating an energetic enough canter, but other than that our rounds went really well. She told me that I need to work on keeping my right knee closer to the tack and that my right leg is in a generally better position than my left.

I had a lot of fun, but it really made me miss having my own horse. William is so well trained that these sorts of exercises are no problem for him and while that’s good for me to work on my position, I would like the challenge of riding a less trained horse. I miss having to work on really improving the horse and knowing when my horse goes well that its because of the training I put into him.

I’m definitely looking forward to taking another lesson with her, unfortunately she won’t be back until April as she’s in Aiken for the winter now.

two more lessons

1.5.10 – We jumped over some small stuff without stirrups in the lesson.

1.12.10 – No jumping in this lesson, just working over poles, changing direction and bend at the trot and canter. We did this both with and without stirrups.

I need to get back into documenting my lessons right after they happen!

two lessons

Oops, I fell behind on my lesson reports.

Lesson 1 – 22 December, 2009

I didn’t post about this lesson because I was incredibly frustrated after it. We worked on stride length on circles using ground poles. I felt like I was just really disorganized and like I couldn’t get William to do what I wanted nor could I get myself to do what I wanted! The poles where arranged like this:

|                     |

—-

|                     |

We did trot circles each direction trying to get same number of strides between the outside and middle pole and then the middle pole and opposite outside pole. We also did this at the canter. William and I really struggled getting the strides right cantering right which was strange because right is his better direction. We struggled with pretty much everything though! Eventually the middle pole became a cross rail and we did figure eights with the cross rail as the ‘switch’ point.

Lesson 2 – 29 December, 2009

This lesson was MUCH better than the week before’s. I don’t know if I was really riding any better – position wise, but I definitely felt better and William seemed to respond better. I focused on really riding him during our warm up, asking him to round and come up through his back and since he is so well trained he was moving really nicely. My legs felt like jelly and I still have trouble double posting, although I am noticing that two point feels easier during the warm up. After the warm up we worked on jumping, just small 2′ish jumps but doing turns that made us switch outside and inside hands. William and I did pretty well, but I messed up on our last go through and William felt tired so it was frustrating to end on a ‘bad’ note after we had previously been doing really well.

The jumps were:

—-(1)     —-(2)     —-(3)

We started out using circles, so jumping down (1), circling left, jumping across (2), circling right and then jumping down (3), switching directions after we did it that way successfully. Then we took out the circles, jumping down (1), across (2) up, across (2) down and then up over (3).

I need to work on my fitness as ever, on not posting with my hands and on keeping my leg more still especially at the canter, and on not asking for the long spots always!

Hopefully I’ll have a lesson with Sally Cousins on 1/15 so I am looking forward to that!