Late again. ;P Definitely starting a trend, here. Though, there wasn’t that much to reflect on this time, to be honest. The lesson came out a little light-weight. Enjoyable, though, not the least because I was finally back on Murphy. Probably because we did some combined jumping and flatwork again in preparation for next weeks jumping.
Whether Murphy was as happy to see me again, I am not sure. As soon as I got on him, it became very evident that he’d done mostly lessons for lower groups lately. He questioned everything and tried every trick in the book and then some to escape work. In fact, most of the horses seemed to have a bad day, because at the end of the lesson our instructor said she was pleased with us but disappointed with the horses because they had kept getting it wrong even when we did it right. Of course, that’s a good learning experience. Pushing the button does not always get the expected result. And I needed a refresher course in being firm as well as more clever than my horse. ;P
Murphy did shape up after he realized I was not an easy-to-fool beginner, so I don’t think he did particularly poorly. I had some issues with the exercise, of course, since it involved getting the right canter-lead again. I still don’t have a good sense of it, but I am working on not looking down to check. At least not looking down with my whole head. I do think my canter transitions are getting pretty solid, though. I sit quite still most of the time.
Afterwards, Murphy seemed discontent with my demands during the lesson, because his teeth got a wee bit close to my face as I took his saddle off. ;P