The weather these last days has been changeable, to say the least, with sunshine and showers alternating with alarming frequency. Today, it felt like we’d get thunder at any moment, though it never showed up. What did show up, however, was quite a headache that kept me from doing much of anything at all until it was time to head off to the riding. As usual, I was feeling pretty okay once we got to the stables, and the last of my headache cleared up when I got Murphy once again. There’s no way I’ll ever tire of riding him, though I suppose he might get tired of me. Hopefully not any time soon, though, as I also signed up for another private lesson on Murphy for next Monday (since Tuesday is a holiday and thus our regular lesson is cancelled) plus I’m signed up for him for the three-day jumping course in a couple of weeks.
Tacking him up went quite well today, except for when I had just picked one of his hoofs and put it down, following which he suddenly moved backwards sharply, as far as his halter would allow him. I think he was a bit sleepy, and got surprised by something, but it was pretty strange behaviour even so. He also seemed to move just a little stiffly when I led him down to the arena, so naturally I got nervous that he had hurt himself somehow. However, it seems to have been some stiffness from standing around for a while, because I couldn’t feel anything odd when I got on him and started walking him, and my instructor couldn’t see anything wrong either.
However, he did feel rather less energetic today compared to the last two times, but I suspect (and hope) that the rather oppressive weather had something to do with this. Whatever the reason was, it was much harder today to get the kind of energy from behind that I had managed the last two times. Can’t expect to get something for free each time, though.
The focus today was on getting the horses to respect the inner leg enough. We worked them on large circles, looking for them to ‘wrap’ themselves around our inner leg. Our instructor suggested that we imagine the inner leg as a tree that the horse had to go around to get to its goal, and the idea was to keep the horse from scraping its inner shoulder against the bark of the tree. Murphy, I suspect, is the kind of horse that would try to go through a tree that ended up in his way instead of around it. ;P
It often takes quite a while to get him to properly respect the inner leg, either to move away from it or to curve around it, though today it had a lot to do with me a) not being as effective as I could have been (I was feeling a little low on energy too) and b) not managing to keep myself centred over the horse. I kept catching myself too far to one side or the other, which often happens when I am working on circles. Its worst on Sammy, who pushes me over to the outside all the time, but Murphy can do that too when he decides to push against my inner leg instead of wrapping himself around it.
The trotting worked a little better than the walking, though the energy was a bit uneven there too, but it wasn’t until we added some cantering that I started feeling some real improvement. We added a small circle within the larger circle, and a transition to canter right after it. Initially, I was quite concerned about Murphy’s lack of energy, considering that he can be hard to get to canter when he is like that, but overall it worked better than I had expected. The first transitions were so-so, but then my instructor suggested I take my whip in my outside hand instead, and that made a big difference today. Next transition he came up much more nicely, with more energy from the outer hindleg.
My seat in the transitions, and the canter itself, was pretty decent. Nowhere near as much movement as some months ago, certainly, and in a few of the transitions Murphy felt remarkably collected. Normally, he goes very flat right off, but in one transition in particular he felt really nicely rounded. My instructor still thought I could sit even more still, though, and I guess I might have gotten a little too enthusiastic about how he felt and I may have tried to hard to keep him going. For the following transition, I managed a very steady seat, save for one thing: I kept pulling my darned inner leg up whenever I used it. This may be the next thing to focus on.
Today, I tried to solve the issue by putting my stirrups up, and with that done I did manage a couple of transitions with my legs fairly nicely stretched. But I think I might suggest we make my legs the focus of the private lesson. Of course, I have to hope that Murphy is fine on Monday. Today he felt even more ... low key after the lesson than last week, and when I led him back into the stall he kept stopping and acting a little funny. I really hope it was just the weather, though.