There are two parts to this post: 1) a lesson recap, and 2) an upcoming clinic this Saturday.
Tweed and I had a lesson yesterday, Monday, and it was a hot one. Temperatures got to 90 degrees, maybe a little more. Because of the heat, we kept it to walk and trot work and only went 45 minutes. Tweed was doing excellent in the heat, but it was beating up on me, and I had to cry uncle. We still accomplished a lot.
Leah was, once again, there to look pretty and distract Tweed outside of the arena. She is so smart. When she realized my husband wasn’t coming, and it was two horses with only one human, she literally flew into the trailer like a unicorn. She has always self-loaded, but never with so much gusto. She really likes her “job,” and I mean REALLY likes it.
In fact, Leah has become my happiest horse around the house, period. She can’t go out on pasture, so she is hand fed everyday and mostly isolated with Cowgirl in the dry lot turnout. She is getting a lot of attention, and she loves it.
Back to the lesson. I rode Tweed both directions around the arena as his warmup. The kid crew was back, a different one this time, and he was nervous going by them. There were about 20 unpredictable, and loud, children along the north fence line. The north fence line instantly became his scary place.
Regina had me ride back and forth along that fence line until he was okay with it. I was to sit deep, always deep, pressing my butt to the ground deep, and hold elasticity in the short reins, hands out in front, rather than braced against my abdomen. Asking, giving, asking giving, and waiting for him to take responsibility for himself on a loose rein.
When we got that, we moved out to the barrels and she took Leah away while I worked on a circle. He got trippy, not paying attention to his feet, so I turned him and continued to ask for vertical flexion. When he had it, I’d give him the loose reins.
Next, we moved to trot, but it was fast and rough, and I had to post it. Regina wanted to let him burn off some steam. But then she changed strategy and told me to step back and ask for the fastest WALK I could get from him. Really push him to a high gear that required all of his effort and engaged his hind end. She wanted him to decide to move into the easier gait of a collected trot on his own. It worked. He did it. We got a lovely, slow trot that I could sit deep and ride.
At that point she told me to ride to the furthest end of the arena away from Leah and rest him.
We rested in the shade at the scary fence line. It wasn’t scary anymore. In fact, he loved it.
Lastly, we walked toward Leah who was outside the south fence line, and asked for a smooth whoa. Got it. Dismounted.
As I said above, Tweed was great, but I was pretty exhausted from riding that fast walk, which required all I had to push for it, and thirsty, too.
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There’s a horsemanship clinic coming up this Saturday.
We are going down Thursday to get Epona and Shiloh plans to ride her on the trail with our trainer.
Our plan is the take her and Tumbleweed for a mother / daughter day with the horses.
They got back to me today and said we can choose between a half day clinic or a full day. I’m leaning towards a half day. I have to decide morning or afternoon, and I’m leaning towards morning. It seems like that would be the beginning training and afternoon could be a continuation for some of the riders. Also, if we felt we would benefit from afternoon, we could decide to stay, if there is room. All day, however, seems like a lot for young horses.
What do you all think?
