A three horse day

[glenatron]

This morning we took Zorro and Small out for an adventure together, going around the common and across it. It was the best weather of the weekend and really nice to be out with sleepsy_mouse and Small on the common. We had a lovely long trot through the woods, then did our first proper bits of cantering with them out together on the common since Small came back into work. The first one Zorro didn't realise I meant canter until Small had got going so we had to really hurry to catch up, but he was brilliant. The second time Small wanted to keep going for quite a while so I got to see him shrinking his canter back to a little slow showjumper type gait when he was asked to slow down. It was a lovely ride and really good to feel that my work with Zorro is paying off in being a able to ride happily and safely with others and just being able to enjoy it.

Interesting things I noticed included feeling Zorro's shoulder open up as I squared and broadened my shoulders during one of my routine position corrections. On the way home I was playing with rein lengths and a few times I got a feeling where suddenly it felt as though his hind legs came into clear focus underneath me and I was picking up a lot more feel from the hindfeet rather than his front legs.

Then I rode Xefira, who hadn't worked for a while because of bad weather and her owner being overloaded with work. Apparently two weeks off equals retirement and lady X did not approve of coming back to work. I ended up doing quite a bit of work on speed control - getting her to trot at the same speed away from where she wanted to be as she did towards where she wanted to be. After some interruptions ("no, wrong speed, try again" ) she started listening to the speed I was riding her rather than just going trotting off at whatever rate she felt would be appropriate. It is an approach I've seen used a few times but not used much myself so it was nice to be able to put it into action.

Finally we went over to Julian's for a lesson, which involved riding his handsome Spanish horse. Carel was in a slightly excitable mood and spooked impressively not long after sleepsy_mouse got on. She stayed with him, but it was impressive. Julian decided he needed to be trotting to keep his mind working, so we spent most of our lessons trotting. I think I'll know about that tomorrow.

Comments

[herecirm.livejournal.com]

Fyi, I'm really scared to ride your horse because I am a pikey rider and know nothing. Perhaps I should just be led around the school a couple times, I don't think I can do any harm that way. :P

Sounds like you had a good day!

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Hey, if knowing nothing was a barrier to riding Zorro I'd never have been able to get on him. You won't do him any harm. But we will start out in the school so you can get the hang of riding him. He may not have the same buttons you are accustomed to, also he'll probably need more beatings than you might expect.

I have no concern at all about you doing any harm to him :D