A very belated entry, but I’ve been quite knackered since I got back last night. It ended up being a pretty tough lesson (in retrospect, I think we should have gone for the hacking out that had been planned, but was changed since we did it twice last semester ;P) and for me it was not the right time of the month for that. So, I’ve been pretty useless today.
It was, however, a good lesson. I had Murphy and once again we worked on maintaining a set cadence and a suitable pace, regardless of gait. In particular, we were supposed to make transitions from one gait to another without changes in cadence.
Initially, Murphy was a bit more hard-mouthed than usual and kept tossing his head up. He was also pretty uneven and a bit stiff. I would guess that he may have been feeling the effects of the semester, with regular work, having started up so recently. After a while, however, I started getting to him. I was a little distracted, as well, as I was trying hard to sit up even straighter than usual as my most recent batch of pictures from the private lessons had shown me that when I think I sit up straight, I am still way off from actually doing so.
Still, after working on the transitions for a while, I found a really nice trot and I was preparing to slow down to a walk. our instructor had jokingly said that she didn’t mind it at all if we went from trot to passage to piaffe and then to a walk, as long as we kept the cadence and the activity. I guess I got a little overly ambitious based on that, because as I went past her, she said that Murphy was on his way into a piaffe. In the end, she said, it ended up as ‘just’ a passage, though I don’t think she was entirely serious. ;) He was, however, working very very hard and was giving me some amazing collection and it felt pretty darn good.
After that, however, he had had enough. It quite rare for him to object to working more than once or twice, which he does to test whether you’re really serious. But now he started dropping down to a walk as soon as I asked for more collection at the trot. Some of it was probably due to me being tired as well, but it really felt as if he was very tired. I gave him a few breathers, but after that we did some cantering and then he switched to a new tactic; speeding (similar to how Sammy’s speed usually increases throughout the lesson, the more you work him) and the final rising trot when we were supposed to get them into a lower form didn’t work very well.
Overall, I was pretty pleased, but I think both rider and horse worked a little too hard through the first half of the class.