Pumped up

I  am just loving my weekly lessons at the moment and all the progress we are making.

I had a flat work lesson this week, and in between my  lessons I really honed in on all the times  Henry  tried to take over the right rein. It  was enlightening, he did if pretty much as soon as  I asked him to walk on. He was very subtle about it, and had a variety of ways to try and take possession of it. Interestingly he was worse with it in walk and canter.

Love a freshly dragged arena!

In our lesson we focussed on centrelines, but during the warm up Bec had me be very fussy about Henry stretching down at all times. He could look at  stuff, but his head had to stay down.Henry  settled really quickly and we got right into some really great work.

We did a bit of shoulder fore and Bec had me think about keeping Henrys butt on the wall rather than  bringing his shoulder off the track. This helped me really feel when we had the correct  angle. We also switched to Renvers halfway down the long side and while Henry was a little resistant the first time our change of  flexion got really smooth  by the end. Bec had me pay attention to which switch was not as smooth, and we honed into it to smooth it out.

On a circle, Bec had me engage my inside thigh to help prevent Henry from falling in, which made a big difference, especially  on the right rein. It  helped to push Henry  out, and then when I sat up and kept out of Henry's way things all of a sudden got so much easier.

We practiced coming into halt on the centreline, first trotting straight down and counting out loud how many  trot strides to X, before walking three strides before X and haling at X. We got some great  halts so after only 3 repetitions went right from trot to halt. We nailed the first one, Henry was obedient, straight and square, he just lost roundness. We  repeated it a few times and all the halts were prompt and square which was great.

After our halts Henry was feeling very pumped up and forward, and on the long side was getting a touch gung ho. I would have to half halt him and he would immediately soften and come back to me, staying round and into the contact. Yes!!  He felt fantastic and our recent drilling is certainly paying off.

We finished the lesson by working on counter canter, which was brilliant. He is getting so much straighter, our transitions were better and he was staying much more uphill.

So grown up and hairy!

The main points from the lesson  were that I  need to sit up again, I have been slumping recently. It made a world of difference that Henry was fresh and forward. The forward helped so much, and made life much easier. I need to think tail to wall rather than shoulder fore to help get the right angle and maintaiin my  contact with the outside rein better. And as always, practice makes perfect!

Autumn colours are out