Pro and I had a pretty good ride last night. The new boarder was out and she decided to walk her Lipizanner around the arena by hand while we were riding, but then she got bored and hopped on to ride him around bareback. Since he hadn't been ridden in several years before she got him, she asked that I keep it at a walk while she was on.
Pro was having his normal "debate" about whether or not he wanted to stretch down at the walk, so that was fine with us. We spent much longer at the walk than normal and on a slightly looser rein, but I made him go all over the ring and change direction periodically rather than our normal boring 20m circle. FINALLY he gave in and started stretching down and over at the walk. The new boarder and I both told him GOOD BOY at the same time, so it was neat to have a 'higher' level dressage rider (I think she's shown 2nd or 3rd level in the past?) agree with me. Once she went in we moved it up to the trot and the fact that we'd gotten the walk solid showed in his trot. We spent awhile keeping the correct bend to the right (focusing on not over bending) and even got some decent forward out of it. The canter in both directions also went really well, with the new boarder spotting us and commenting that he had a very nice canter and that it looked easy to sit. :) I pushed him to keep the canter for a little longer than he was comfortable with, but stopped before it completely fell apart. It sounds like cantering may become a regular part of our lessons so he's going to need those muscles again!
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2 comments:
It's nice to have an outside audience, sometimes. :) When he's being good!
I'm quite excited for our cantering too...finally!
Yay, that sounds so wonderful! It really IS nice sometimes to have an audience when they are good, isn't it? Too often it seems there is only an audience when something is BAD!
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