'Tis a gift to be forward, 'tis a gift to be straight

It has been a quiet last few days. 'Dea's riding mentor has worked out a system and they are getting along quite swimmingly now. She did some really good work last week and is coming along very nicely in the contact. Which is making just about everything else easier.

I've been to back to work and hitting up the gym to keep from slacking off. Being a Super Senior chemist isn't easy, but I've been working hard these short weeks. 

A view of my bench space

My nickname at work is appropriately Seabiscuit, or just biscuit for short. It became 'Mrs' when I got married in 2009. But no work for me today as we have a lesson!

Today's work:

• Position thoughts: lower leg off but thigh on, hips in front of elbows, bend elbows to sides. Carry the tray, stand over stirrups. I had a much easier time doing the test of changing diagonals by standing at the trot today.
• At the trot ride the base of the neck straight, shoulders must come up and out and forward to the bridle. The horse must take you. No squeezing, kick for forward and then lower leg off. Keep asking yourself, is she taking me forward?
• In the trot to walk transition do not allow her to stab into the ground. Ask for the transition from your seat do not pull back on the reins. We worked a bit on this until we got a good transition. Transition immediately back to trot if not good.
• Shoulder-in is from the shoulders not the neck. Shift hands to the inside, do not move inside leg back keep it at the girth. As always ride FORWARD in the shoulder-in.
• Shoulder-in to renver: change the bend, open the inside hand slightly to allow the contact. This helped improve our renver. Ride FORWARD in the renver.
• Canter left felt great. Stay in the box and the horse must take you. Ran through some serpentines, do not let the canter change. 10 meter circles ride from the outside aids and keep the jump. Outside leg frames the horse to the circle.
• Canter right was a bit of a mess. We had an okay walk-canter transition and then we went to crooked town where her canter falls apart. Back to the shoulder out, move the haunches in and she must look left on the circle. Get the base of the neck straight. There was a bit of shenanigans that when I kick her with my outside leg she must answer, and bucking to flying change is not an answer. Then once re-sensitized to my leg and perhaps some grunting from me we got some real canter back. So much so that I was able to get a real canter to walk transition to stand up about. So yay for that!

We talked about how I'm too much of a follower type rider, which I totally get. I need to get out of the mindset of not wanting to rock the boat and instead being the leader. Once I'm the leader it really does make things better, I just need to keep at it.

'Dea is with her girl for the next few days and then we have another lesson early Friday morning before Pam leaves for a clinic. Then it's off to UNH for the June Dressage Show. Ride times are posted and all of our rides are in the morning, which will be nice if it is hot. 

We start off the freestyles with our ride at 11:45am on Saturday. I just finished my music and did some brief run-throughs on Sunday during our light ride. Have a pretty good idea of our choreography but might have to wing the end of it. I haven't had the chance to really ride through this one as much as I did the year before last. I love freestyles, it should be a blast!

NEDA 2010 Fourth Place Year End Award

Photo Credit: Marielle Watson