Last week was a theory lesson, and another round of loose jumping, so I didn’t have too much to say about that. The most interesting bit was seeing how Vermir, a relatively newcomer to the stables, followed our instructor around. They’d had a bit of an argument some days before about who should be in charge. He clearly lost. ;)
Yesterday, we were back to dressage. I got Murphy, but unfortunately both him and I were lacking a little in motivation. Or perhaps it was just my slight lack of focus that did it, though it wouldn’t be the first time that he decided he wasn’t keen on working. He was also in a really bad mood towards the other horses, although he was quite pleasant to deal with in the stables.
The plan for the lesson was to work our way towards a shoulder in. We started off with a free warm-up, which probably wasn’t a great idea for me when I wasn’t as focused as I could have been and when my usual riding (or what I thought was my usual riding, anyway) didn’t have much effect on Murphy. He didn’t quite feel lazy, but definitely lacked engagement. I rode him forward quite a bit, to try to get some movement through his body, but my instructor felt that I was just letting it all disappear rather than collecting it at the front. However, whenever I did shorten my reins and tried to establish some sort of connection between his front and back, I got nothing. He just moved on.
Towards the end of the warm-up, I did manage to establish a bit of a connection after being nagged about riding him forward on the outside, towards my outer hand. But I don’t think I made any real changes to my riding at that point. Instead, I think both him and I were slow to get started, and I doubt I could actually have gotten there much earlier. I think I am starting to develop a bit more feeling for when something is going to work and when it isn’t. If I was riding alone, I would probably have canned the dressage plans yesterday and done something else. Then again, I could be fooling myself, too.
Anyhow, things did get a little better (though he remained quite heavy in front, and my arms are feeling it today—not good for work), and I did have some issues with keeping his outside steady that I slowly got a grip on during the lesson. The end result wasn’t great, but I managed a fairly steady trot while keeping him slightly curved around my inner leg. Not quite a shoulder in (we weren’t supposed to get that far yesterday, though), but some okay work on the preparatory stages. I’ll definitely be aiming to do better next work, especially if I get Murphy again.
Interestingly, my instructor asked me if I ride anywhere else, for example sharing a horse with anyone. I don’t, because I don’t really know many of the horse owners where I live since that’s not where the riding school is. I wonder if she was thinking that it looks like I have gotten some practice elsewhere ... or that I need it. ;) The latter is certainly true, of course. Can’t exactly ride too much. Except, owwie, riding without stirrups as I did yesterday can lead to chafing.