Oh, look, its Tuesday again. Life has just piled up on top of me lately. I am hoping this weeks lesson will help perk me up a bit and if it goes like last week, the chance is good.
We stayed with the theme of very controlled turns and straightness without the help of a nearby wall. To start with we worked on weaning the horses off from automatic turns at the corners by riding straight into the corner and coming to a half as soon as they wanted to start turning on their own. Heddvig responded quite well to this, though she did get a little stressed at one point but Ulrika reminded me to make sure to always make it clear to her what she needed to do to get away from any pressure. She made the point that mares often get stressed more easily since they have to think about protecting themselves and a foal, and Heddvig has had some foals as well.
Once she felt we rode the corners fairly well, we added turning in down the center line. The turns onto and off the line were important, of course, and also the straightness of the line itself. Again I had some issues with turning too late to the right at first, but after a while I had the hang of it and Heddvig ended up very nicely balanced. She often gets a little rushed, but her trotting towards the end felt very good. Its probably the best balance I’ve had out of her so far, so that did perk me up a bit.