My arms and legs had definitely not recovered from Tuesday’s lesson, but I was set to have a private lesson today, so they just had to come along even so. Fortunately, the rain and thunder that had been forecasted had disappeared entirely in favour of suddenly very summery weather, so I was in for a very pleasant lesson in the outdoor paddock.
When we got to the stables, all the horses save Nelson and Murphy were out in the field. Nelson was being ridden for a private lesson just before me and I was going to be riding Murphy. Neither of them looked very happy to be left indoors, however, though they did have a nice big pile of hay each to make up for it. Still, Murphy is a lot more mellow when the stables are quiet, so he was quite polite while he was groomed and tacked up. Once it was time to lead him down to the paddock, however, he suddenly seemed quite confused about where we were going in the middle of the day, while all the other horses were elsewhere. Spotting Nelson already in the paddock seemed to sort the situation out for him, though.
I warmed him up while the girl on Nelson finished up her lesson, and I noticed right off that he was very soft and supple but also a little on the slow side. I suspect he was as shocked by the sudden warmth as I was, because he wasn’t unwilling to work, as such. I had decided to continue with the work we did this Tuesday, shortening and lengthening, and so when it was time to start working for real we made a smaller square out of about half the paddock, to give me for straight sides and four corners to work with.
I had already both walked and trotted him for a while, so we moved right onto working him at a trot, to start with counter-clockwise. At first, he kept going against my inner leg through the corners, so for a while we focused on the obedience issues. Once I got him to curve around my inner leg, and once I got around to keeping my outside rein both shorter and steadier (he bends easily to the left, but he also overbends easily), he started working quite nicely. Of course, once we switched over to riding clockwise, I had a different problem to content with: a harder inside and a softer outside, so now I really had to watch it so he didn’t end up bent outwards. But at the trot, it worked pretty well.
All the time, the basic exercise was collecting him just before and through each corner, and asking him for extension when coming out of the corner, to get a good ‘uphill’ feeling. For an Irish horse, he collects amazingly well. Getting good extension was harder, however, and my instructor nagged me a bit about being too soft on him again when I didn’t get an immediate increase when I asked for it. She suggested I try a light tap with the whip, since he’s really sensitive to it when he’s working like that, and it did the trick.
More or less, anyway. I don’t think he carried himself quite so well whenever I asked for some extension (his neck came up and forward a bit, for example), but I could still feel him working through the back. The collected trot, however, was stunning. He was working so incredibly hard I could hear how he was breathing differently, and he was getting sweaty behind his ears quite early on. Once it was time to let him (and me!) rest for a bit, the instructor and I ended up talking some about Irish horses. A whole stable full of them would be ideal, she thought. Good hooves, good bones, good teeth and usually good tempers too. And we marvelled again at how great a lesson horse Murphy is, because when its bad, its abysmal, and when its good, its great. You really know when you’re doing something right on him. Plus, he collects incredibly well for a horse of his build. She (jokingly, I think) said he was almost doing a passage for a while during the trot. I suspect he could do it quite well under a better rider.
After the break, we trotted a bit more, and then moved on to some cantering. Now it suddenly got hard again. I managed good transitions to the left, but getting him collected without having him drop down to a trot was very tough. Most of the time, I managed to keep a steady seat (the work we did on that last year is still paying off), but in trying to be quick enough in my reactions I often ended up stressing him forward. She kept having to remind me to just sit slowly. At the time, it didn’t strike me what it is that makes me rush, but I think it is the fact that I feel poorly coordinated and that makes me feel as if I won’t have time to give the right aids at the right time. So, my aids get rushed. It probably also has something to do with my history of riding lazy horses, which gave me that bad habit of constantly urging them on, but now that I am much better at just sitting still, I think I can see the problem has more components than just that.
Still, going to the left was a lot easier than going to the right. There, he decided he couldn’t get the right canter. A few times, it was my fault for holding too much on the inner rein and not enough on the outer, but most of the time it was him messing up. And once I got to asking for some collection, it got really tough. I did, however, manage a few stretches of good work. I am thinking that next time (I will try to manage at least one more private lesson before the semester ends) I might ask her if she thinks an exercise with short stretches of canter would work better. Its when it gets longer than my coordination gets worse. Probably in part due to my fitness level, which isn’t stellar. I might be more flexible now, thanks to pilates and stuff, but cardiovascular exercise isn’t precisely on the menu.
In any case, the canter work was satisfactory but nothing compared to the trot work, which was amazing. We concluded the lesson with a few figure-eights at a slow rising trot, and I was almost able to keep him entirely balanced without any reins at all. He definitely worked very hard today (not without a few moments here and there of disagreement, but his ears were pricked forward all the time) and when we finished up he was soaking wet. I walked him for a bit, gave him plenty of candy, and then took him back to the stables to sponge him off (which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit, and no wonder). Now, I have overcooked spaghetti for arms and legs and a silly smile on my face.