Quick Update!

Snow stopped play On Thursday and although I tried to get to the yard I nearly ditched my car doing so!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! So I gave up and went home – a little shaken actually. Went for a lovely hack out with one of the girls on the yard on Saturday and it was nice to take the time to relax and have a chinwag, actually Id not realised how much I missed riding out with my daughter as nowadays I ride out on my own more often than not. Antsje enjoyed it too I think having some company :o)

On Sunday I did a bit of schooling in the arena and also yesterday morning too. The running theme was, well, exactly that…………….RUNNING! She is back to her trammy ways and I rather suspect its because we have been doing a few sessions of the more open work and then the hack she is avoiding stepping under and engaging in her typical way which is trying to speed up and run through my hands. I actually HATE when she gets like this because its very hard not to get into an argument with her because even trying to ride ‘tactfully’ for example putting her on smaller circles / serpentines to try and get her to slow down just doesn’t seem to work! She can do a 10m circle at warp speed – not correctly of course and its like the wall of death!! And its SOOOOO hard not to ‘hold’ which only infuriates the situation even more because that seems to make her even faster lol!
So towards the end, I just focussed on my position being strong, taking DEEP breaths and trying to set a nice slow rhythm. We did get some better work towards the end but each time I tried to ‘give’ the rein for her to stretch more into my hand, she took the liberty of speeding up! So I didn’t quite get the submission to my seat that I prefer and I came off feeling a bit disappointed :o(

This morning I worked on SUBMISSION!! Lol! I also put my stirrups back up a hole as I felt yesterday I was tending to get a bit ‘water-skier’ as she was doing her best to pull me out of position. I think this worked better today. Also I remembered to breath deeply right from the start, which helped ME, stay relaxed at any rate! So we did lots of walking / halting from the seat before we did ANY trotting at all! I also went back to more lateral work and did some girivolta / Shoulder In / Travers on the circle. As I felt her ‘come together’ more then I asked for trot and although she did try it on a little bit at the start, we actually got some nice SLOW trotting and some proper 10m circles :o) At the end I went large and practised walking STRAIGHT – not as easy as you may think! If you let her dolly on a long rein she is fine, but ask her to walk SLOW and in balance then she finds it hard. But we persevered until I felt she understood the exercise – which was basically engaging through her body evenly as she is good on circular work but looses it on the straight lines. So nothing really spectacular with regards to exercises or the quality of work – but I do think that I achieved my purpose, which was for her to STAY WITH ME!

I am attending a clinic on Sunday with Heather Moffett which I am really excited about!! BOING BOING!! I had a lesson about 3 yrs ago with her so I am hoping she will notice some improvements! And also move us forwards with her keen eye – particularly rider faults (Ooops!) Plus lots of my friends are going too, so it should be an excellent day for learning and fun! I am hoping Antsje will be less ‘steam train’ by Sunday!