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…