Practice

Friday morning was even chillier than Thursday. :) Love, love, LOVE this weather!! I wore a long-sleeve thin cotton shirt under one of my microfiber workout shirts that I normally wear to the barn. Elisabeth is out of town for the weekend, and she asked me if could ride Christa Friday for her. My lesson wasn't until that evening, so I tacked up Christa and rode her down to the field.

Christa just went into heat and has been particularly sassy (trying to bite passers-by when she's in her stall), and actually bucked for Elisabeth under saddle Thursday when asked to canter (she never does this for her mom). She's been particularly sensitive to touch on her lumbar back, flanks and belly. So my plan was to just take her down to the field for some walk and trot to exercise her, but not instigate her crankiness/soreness with cantering. Plus I've never ridden her myself outside of the arena, and I wanted to see how she'd behave for me. I know she's an angel for Elisabeth.

Tacking up, she stood with a wrinkled nose, which I thought was funny. Cranky mare. As soon as I stopped what I was doing and approached her head, her nose would relax. So I would pet her and talk to her, and continue what I was doing. Wrinkled nose again. *lol*




Wrinkled nose

 I expected her to be sassy getting on, too, so I tightened the girth, placed the dressage whip in my right hand, and put weight on the stirrup. She whirled her head and swished her tail in protest, but no buck-I figured out she bucks if the saddle shifts when I put weight on the stirrup. I tapped her with the whip on her right hip, and she stopped. I only had to do this 1 more time, and she allowed me to get on. We then walked down to the field. She was a little "up" going down the driveway, and looky, but once on the street she relaxed into her usual easygoing self. I like Christa. She's a good girl, but she's got some personality.

We had a great workout. After a nice relaxed warmup, I asked her for more collection and we worked on shoulder-ins, circles, spirals, and then doing long diagonal and straight lines using the entire field at a good energetic trot while still maintaining a frame. She did excellent! She only complained once while I was asking her to extend even more, but a tap with the whip corrected that. We only worked on walk and trot, as her feet were long and I didn't want her straining anything. As if on cue, when we arrived back at the barn, Elisabeth's farrier had shown up to do another horse and Christa, so she did get a nice pedicure.

My lesson was at 6:30pm. The weather was a little warmer than that morning, but still cool (for us) in the low 70s. I returned to the barn early to set up part of the dressage arena (corners, and a couple of rails on the sides to create an illusion of an arena). I also clipped Lily's legs, face and bridle path, and tacked her up afterwards. I already had show jitters. We were going to practice our tests today.

Judy arrived and I took Lily outside to get on. She became very fidgety at the mounting block, which is highly unusual for her. July held her while I got on, and then Lily tried to walk off before I had my right foot in the stirrup. I'm not really sure what happened next. Apparently Julie quickly reached for the reins to halt Lily, and Lily panicked. She gave 3 enormous and completely unexpected bucks, slamming me to the ground. I jumped back up from the concrete-like footing (after all the rain, the sand in the arena was packed as hard as cement!!), fine but already feeling the ginormous bruise I was going to have on my right thigh. Immediately the entire barn was standing at the arena gate. One of the girls anticipated that I would need the longe line and brought it out for me before I could ask for it. I clipped it on, and proceeded to longe Lily. Calmly, quietly. She was still skittish when approached, and extra-willing to trot out. I had her canter, and then do a balanced,  controlled gallop, but she did not offer to bolt or buck anymore. We changed directions and repeated the same process. She relaxed enough where I felt better about getting on again. Mounting up was uneventful, but Lily was SUPER tense, a stark contrast to the relaxed willing mare I'd ridden the day before! Judy had us walk around the arena, working on some light bending, and then pick up a trot. Her trot was a total reversal to day 1: like riding a pogo stick. I could not get her to push forward and stretch. We tried this for a few minutes, but any leg pressure caused her to jump, a touch on the reins made her pop up her head. And then Judy told me to just stroke her neck. Lily instantly gave a big long snort and dropped her head. The tension in her body was reduced by about 50%. Wow. And duh! I know how well she responds to praise, but I was so tense myself that I wasn't thinking either. Ater that, the lesson improved. With a lot more praise, Lily almost relaxed to where she had consistently been the last few weeks. Then Judy wanted us to canter. I made a face; I didn't feel comfortable. We discussed it. Judy really felt it would help her relax more. I asked if I could do it in 2-point-it's the only way I can safely canter her when she's this jumpy. Judy said this was fine. She also said we didn't need to canter if I didn't feel confident. But after thinking about it for a minute, I felt better about the idea. So we cantered. I brought her into the gait from the walk, and asked her to canter with the verbal cue, "Up." She popped right into the canter, and we did a lovely canter around the entire arena, me in 2-point with a light contact on the reins, stroking her neck, her snorting happily with every stride. It worked: her following trot was a lot more relaxed. We then changed directions and repeated. She was just as good. Afterwards we practiced Intro A & B. Lily didn't  want to bend, but we at least finished the lesson on a good note. By then, night was falling, nad Judy and I ended up agreeing to practice Intro C Saturday morning at 9:00 am.

I was at the barn early Saturday morning to longe Lily before the lesson, and she was back to her normal self. We longed fully tacked with side reins on, and she did very well; the best I've seen her so far on the longe. Judy arrived when I was half-way through, and she was impressed with Lily's movement. After a brief warmup under saddle, we practiced the dreaded C test: I was afraid Lily was going to take off when asked to canter on the circle. She surprised me by keeping her cool, picking up the correct lead and relaxing into the circle within 2 strides. I felt much better about our test. As it turns out, you CAN show in Open and Novice in the same level, in the same show.