A so-so lesson this week (last week, btw, was a theory lesson I was unable to attend as it was scheduled later than our usual timeslot). I had a choice between Heddvig and Nelson and went for the former, but considering the amount of cantering, Nelson would have been a little wiser. Especially since cantering Heddvig went far less smoothly this week than it has recently.
The lesson started off well, though, with Heddvig chewing on the bit and coming up a bit through the back of her own volition. She couldn’t keep it up in the trot, but I think its showing her continued progress. We warmed up with quite a bit of trotting, during which I tried to focus on good corners and my own seat (and not looking down!), and then went straight into a good deal of cantering. At first, just along the whole of the arena, paying attention to good, balanced corners. Ulrika reminded me not to just let her canter until she fell back into a trot once it became too difficult but to transition back down to trot regularly to make sure it was done when I wanted it done.
After some of that, we moved to a circle at a walk at the start of each long end of the arena, canter out of the circle and down the length of the arena, trot along the short end and back to walk for a new circle-to-canter at the start of next long end. Going clock-wise, she struggled a lot to get the right canter, though once I kept her pretty straight, kept myself still and was quick to apply the whip on the inner shoulder, we managed a couple of times. Going counter-clockwise, the main issue was how she’d launch herself into canter, which took some adjusting to. On one occasion she almost lost her canter part-way down the arena and I managed to remind her to keep going, but then we ended up going back down to a trot too quickly after that. Ulrika told me that its better for her learning that if I have to reissue the canter aid to keep her going, then I should keep cantering some distance after that to avoid confusing her.
There were bits and pieces that worked, and bits and pieces that didn’t. Pretty normal, all considered. Though going to the stables and being there still doesn’t feel normal; I just miss Murphy too much for that. And right now, its quite a struggle for the riding school as a whole, as we have lost a lot of horses this year and we have a lot of sick or injured horses right now. It doesn’t look so good for getting another horse I can ride, either.