Well, there was no comparison between this week’s lesson and last week’s, but no surprise there. I was on Sammy again, though, and I was glad I got a chance to actually work on him a bit. He started off the day by accidentally biting me, however. He was really muddy, and he is very sensitive about how he is being brushed, so he didn’t appreciate the process of getting the mud out at all. As a result, he kept snapping at me, but without actually intending to hit because he’s too well-mannered for that. Then he misjudged the distance and got me across the knuckles (owwie) and boy did he look very ashamed of himself afterwards. Stod very still too for the rest of the grooming and tacking up.
We continued along the same lines as last week, working on control over the horse’s body in general and the inner shoulder in particular. We spent most our time riding circles and the objective was to keep a soft inside through transitions. First between halt and walk and then between walk and trot and finally between trot and canter.
Walking went pretty well. Sammy has a very stiff right side, but at a walk I can usually get around it. Trotting also went quite well as long as we were doing a rising trot. In fact, my instructor even said I had a good upper body position and the weight nicely down through the legs all the way to the heels. I was very surprised to hear that, because it is usually a problem for me, but I think the new shoes (I am using the winter shoes even though it isn’t quite that cold, just to break them in) actually help with my feet. They certainly have a very good grip against the stirrup, which allows me to relax my leg more and have the heel down instead of pressing the foot against the stirrup.
Of course, things got much harder when we started sitting down in the trot. All of a sudden Sammy had no respect for my inner leg and trying to work him flexed outwards on the circle (basically, we rode each circle flexed inwards for a while, then switched over for a while before we could come over to the other circle) resulted in him moving sideways and not tracking at all. I managed little bits of good work here and there, but the change from the walk and the rising trot was very noticeable. Only after I did some cantering (and the canter also worked better than the sitting trot) did I get him a little softer on the right side.
We then finished off with another oddity. As we concluded with working them at some more rising trot in a more relaxed form, my instructor said Sammy was trotting very well when it felt as if he was doing his usual after-cantering-rush (trotting him after you have cantered usually means twice the speed compared to before). So, clearly I need to work on telling the difference between when he’s just rushing and when he’s actually working well, because I’ve gotten very used to slowing him down after hearing that he’s just running to avoid work. It is not easy to tell when he’s working in the trot, however. The walk is much clearer, and the canter too.
But what about that problem in the sitting trot? Well, I asked, since I figured it had to be me doing something different when sitting down during the trot. Sure enough, my leg goes forward (partly because I get tenser when sitting down, partly because the position in the sitting trot makes it hard for me to physically get my leg far enough back), so I lose the correct placement of the aid. She said its especially noticeable on a larger horse like Sammy, where I need my leg in just the right place since I don’t have any leg surplus, so to speak. Not sure what I can do other than get a better body, though. ;P