Dressage club

It's been  a wet and windy week this week! It's been a brilliant start to winter after last year was so dry but it sure makes it hard to ride when I don't have an arena and it gets dark early which makes going out on the trails so much harder. 

Two weeks ago we had our second dressage club rally, I am a bit behind blogging! That week Henry had 2 rides, one of which he fancied a career change to rodeo pony. I won that rodeo and he settled down, but it wasn't the best preparation for the rally. I put my name down to do one private lesson and one group lesson  but my friend who I was sharing the lesson with wasn't able to come so I ended up have two individual lessons and boy did we work hard!

It was a bit wet, that light misty rain that makes everything very wet. Henry was feeling very fresh and a bit tense but he warmed up sensibly. As the arena got busier he got more tense but he was a good boy and focussed on me. 

I had had the coach once before so we got reacquainted and she put us straight to work, the individual sessions are 20 minutes and you WORK for all 20. We started by working on the flexion on a 20m circle, improving my timing in the ask and release, plus tweaking my position. We added spiralling into a 10m circle and back out again, then lots of changed of direction, using a 10m loop down the long side and adding a 10m circle on the opposite rein at X. 

We took similar exercises into canter, and I was really pleased with how on my aides Henry was.

I found all the exercises really helpful, and they really got Henry tuned in and listening even when he didn't want to. The coach was very no nonsense and from without being mean and got Henry and  I working really well. 

We did very similar things in my second lesson but Henry  came out so much more relaxed so we could really build on things. The coach had me be more subtle with my aides, and changing the flexion. We were able to drill down even further and Henry worked beautifully. I was so so happy with him, he really stepped up and tried his best. 

The exercises we did have really improved things for us, Henry has been much more consistent and working so well. I am very proud of him!