I got suspicious when I came to the stables and found Murphy with hay on his butt and mud in his mane. And sure enough, he had not been used for any classes today because he had come in from the field with a swelling on one knee. Argh. My instructor was not sure what it was, but thought perhaps it might be some fluid in there. It was not hot and not tender, and she could not find any cuts that might have started an infection, so I am hoping it isn’t anything serious or anything that will keep him out of lessons for too long. But I will be worrying a bit until I see him again next week and get an update on him.
I am hoping, though that is probably too optimistic, that he’ll be in next week’s lesson, as I suspect I may otherwise be continuing with Fleur since I rode her today. Not that I mind too greatly, as she’s not a bad horse at all. She just has one problem, she spooks easily, and since I do too that isn’t always a great combination. Silly thoroughbred. That’s one breed I’d never get for myself.
Jumping was on the menu today, but it too was being tied into the exercises from the previous week. Two obstacles were set on a curved line, plus we were supposed to ride a circle between the obstacles too. The idea was for us to focus on keeping the soft inner side at all times: before each obstacle, after each obstacle and in every transition between straight or curved lines and between different gaits.
Fleur started off feeling very co-operative at a walk, and I found my legs fit quite nicely around her rather slim body, giving me a firm, steady leg position and good aids that made it pretty easy both to keep her going forward and to keep her a little wrapped around my inner leg. Once we started trotting, her head came up, and I took some work to figure out how to get her to work best. She invites you to shorten your reins a lot, but when I managed to keep them longer it worked better. However, the further we got into the class, the harder that got, as she turned out to be quite frisky (she’s extremely temperature sensitive, and this was apparently still cold enough for her to be lively, if not as insane as she is when its below 0) and I kept being a chicken who shortened her up too much. Still, after we had worked on the canter for a bit, I got some really nice trot out of her.
We then moved on to the jumping. At first, we approached the first obstacle at a trot and made the transition to canter somewhere along the circle between the two obstacles. Fleur was being quite frisky, having watched a few of the other horses jump already, so I was keeping my reins fairly short. As a result, I ended up with a short, collected canter on the circle and slightly brisker, more long-striding canter on the final stretch towards the obstacle. I liked the shorter canter better, as the other felt very flat, and my instructor agreed that it was rounder but that she needed more length to be able to jump. But yes, if she gallops on a bit more, her canter really shows how limited it is. She moves a bit like a pony then, quite flat and a bit jarring.
Next time around, the second obstacle was a bit higher, and Fleur had also decided on her own to start cantering earlier. Both this and the previous time I had gotten good softness in the inside, especially on the circle, but I was holding back my inner hand a little too much. As a result, she got the wrong canter when she landed. Now, I usually give quite well with the reins over a jump, and I don’t think there was much difference, but she was really sensitive to even the slightest tension on the inside. And I was, again, being too much of a chicken to give even more as I thought she’d rush off too much. I redid the second exercise, and here my instructor thought I did okay but she was being too fussy.
Finally, we did the whole thing at a canter. My problem here was that although she was soft in the inner side, she pushed inwards quite a bit on the turn, so I ended up not giving enough with the inner rein over the first obstacle, again resulting in the wrong canter. I had to correct it on the circle, and then I managed to prepare for the proper canter well enough that she landed correctly after the second obstacle. It did involve daring to let her run on a bit more, and she really didn’t accelerate all that much, so I definitely should have dared to do so sooner.
Overall, okay. I think I rode her a bit better now than I could when I last rode her (over a year ago, I think) and I think I could do even better than this. So in that sense, I wouldn’t mind trying her again. But I don’t like the fact that I never quite relax when I am on her. I know she hasn’t got a bad bone in her body, but she is such a silly girl at times. Might wait a little longer and then ask for her when it gets a bit warmer. She’s quite good for private lessons too, as she’s one who spooks at the slightest signal from another horse, but I do prefer those on Murphy. Fingers crossed that he’ll be fine soon.