This week, I figured I had better get my post out on time, or Christmas would swallow it up entirely.
For the last lesson of this semester, our instructor decided to give as many of us as possible horses we really like. So, I got Murphy. Not ideal for the exercise, but I was nevertheless very pleased. It has been a while since I rode him, after all. I am not sure he had missed me, though, because while I tried to get all the mud off him, his teeth came perilously close to my nose. ;P Not my fault that he was all dirty, but he seemed to feel it was.
We continued to work on cantering, and we were back to using little jumps on the diagonal to work on changing the lead. The exercise basically consisted of us spending the whole lesson on a figure-of-eight.
Murphy felt pretty forward and eager to work, though he also displayed some more stubborness than usual. Probably as a result of doing mostly lower-level classes for a while. For example, he tried to go after other horses a few times. Winston, especially, was a target, and when I mentioned this my instructor noted that the other day Winston had ‘borrowed’ Inca, Murphy’s girlfriend. Murphy had spotted this from across the other end of the field, and charged off towards Winston. She said she’d never seen him gallop so fast or so well, and he had slammed right into Winston who didn’t realize he was doing something wrong so he failed to move. Oops. ;P
The exercise wasn’t too hard at first, when we trotted most of the way and then asked for canter right after the tiny little jumps. Murphy got his canter to the right correct most time, but to the left he kept getting the wrong leading leg. I think he was a bit more unevensided than usual, as he kept throwing the left shoulder out. And once we moved onto trying to canter the whole way, it got a lot trickier. First, of course, we had to keep an eye out for the others since we intersected at the middle. Then we had to remember to ride for the new canter when coming towards each jump, to try to get a change across the jump.
On Murphy, this was easier said than done. For one thing, he was very eager by now, and I think last weeks lesson had put me into a very forward-thinking mode. Which meant a pretty fast canter and constantly having to drop down to a trot to manage the intersection properly, since a more collected canter isn’t really possible on Murphy unless I spend a lot of time focusing on just that. The other thing that complicated the situation (and contributed to the speed) was that when I am told to ride for the new canter when approaching a jump, I try too hard. And when I try too hard when cantering, I get overactive and pushy again.
However, I did manage a few good changes, and what was very good about being on Murphy (as opposed to, for example, Gamir) was how clearly I felt the change when I managed to give the right cues and he managed to sort out how to move his legs. Afterwards, he was also very supple and trotted really nicely, so I think the effort clearly got him to work out in a good way. I will definitely be booking a private lesson soon to do the same thing without the interference of other horses. It would be a great way for me to continue work on more passive riding in canter and to work on my feel for whether I have the right canter or not.
All in all, a good finish to the lesson year. :) Oh, and it was the first test of my new Fusion Winter Rider boots from Mountain Horse, which are supposed to keep my very frozen feet warm. I had been debating for a long while whether to get new tall boots or a pair of low winter boots and leggings that I can use both with my regular low boots and with these. The leggings I wanted, alas, were not wide enough even in wide. At 60 kg or just above, I am not exactly overweight, but I have always had really stocky lower legs. So, I figured leggings and low boots would work where most tall boots don’t, but leggings also turned out to be an issue. I may be getting another pair, though, which were more sensibly sized. In any case, the boots performed quite well, so I am hopeful they’ll work nicely.