Thursday 14 June 2012

Lesson #8 Contact and Birthdays

Poor G, today was his birthday and we celebrated it by having an awesome lesson with my favorite trainer. Sorry if this post is full of spelling errors it is late at night and i am trying to use my T.V to write this post and unfortunatly the web page doesnt get big enough for me to see it super good and the heating pad just feels way to darn good on my back to move. so anywayr;

Today was G's 6th birthday, i thought it was on mothers day but according to his registration papers (which i recently recieved YAY me) June 13th is his birthday.

My favorite trainer T is leaving in 4-5 weeks to move back to B.C so i finally managed to get a few lessons from her for the next couple weeks before she leaves. Ill be very sad when she goes because i have learned more from her about myself and how to ride than anyone else in the short period that i have known her.

Tonight we worked on contact with the bit and engaging the hind end. G and i had not done any work on this prior because i was not sure how to ask properly for such a big thing like contact with the bit. T taught me to keep my outside rain tight and give with my inside rein while keepiing pressure with my inside leg to keep G straight forward and prevent him from turning his head, then gently give and take with my inside rein until he started to give to the pressure. He did fantastic for me going to the left took about 5 minutes of him having to figure out what i was asking then he started to get the hang of it, it wasnt perfect but i was completely happy with it. To the right i struggled to keep my inside leg on mostly due to the fact that that is his "bad" direction and my bad hip/pelvis so it is something we will need to work on majorly is building those muscles up so 1) he is not always compensating for me on that side and 2) im strong enough to keep the leg pressure on long enough to get a response.

My favorite thing about T is if she is having a hard time judging whether it is the horse or the rider she will ask you to get off and try it out herself so she can better explain what you need to do for each individual horse to get the desired result, i have never met a trainer like her and im sure i never will when she leaves *sad face*. She decided to get on G and work with him on the contact because i was struggling to that side, i trust her with my horse and trust her judgement so i let her do what she needed to do to get where she wanted him to be. I have a few vidoes of G starting to come into the bit at a walk and a trot, this is not me riding its my trainer.

After she was done what seemed like an endless battle she had me get back on so i could see and feel the difference for my next few rides so we are able to continue working on it. When i was on the ground it looked awesome when he finally came into the right frame and engaged his hind end more. When i got on it took very little to get him to come back to the bit his neck was so rounded i could hardly see his ears he was not pulling on my hands nothing and his trot felt amazing it was so forward and fluid we even went into a trot were it felt so graceful like we were gliding around the arena, i am very impressed he picked it up very quickly i am just hoping that when i go out again tomorrow morning (after his day off) he will remember what i am asking him and be able to get back into that frame.

I was trying to get some videos on for you i am going to try again today because for whatever reason my youtube and my phone are not connecting which makes me sad. I cant wait to get out and ride him tomorrow i am on cloud nine right now, contact was something i was expecting to take a long time we will for sure be a team to watch out for in our area next year.

2 comments:

  1. Happy birthday, G. Sounds like you both got the gift of knowledge. I love when I get to see someone else ride my horses.

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  2. I wouldnt say we have the gift of knowledge but i would definatly say that we are gifted with great friends and a great barn with people who are always willing to help. I dont let many people ride G only people i trust to work with him the same way that i have been working with him. But it does make it easier to see what it is you need to be doing if you can see it AND feel it.

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