At short notice I decided I would go to James Roberts today to see how Filly was getting on. In theory it was the first of two handover days in any case, but as I have to work tomorrow we decided a while back that my handover would be four days next week. Therefore I did not go with the anticipation of riding, just a visit to see how she was doing.
The day started watching James ride his big black show jumper. Very interesting to watch as always. He was working on getting a standard stride pattern at canter, with lead changes, between poles on the ground. That's an overview, the interest was in the detail which would take me hours to describe.
After that the other folks on their handovers had a lecture which I sat in on to save James the trouble of giving it again to me.
Then came the shock. Did I want to ride Filly ? I quick check that Josh's hat fitted and that was settled.
We got the colts out of their pens and brought them up to the indoor school. I guess I expected some coaching from James, but he just said "do what you need to prepare a ride practising inside leg isolations and no more" and left me to get on with it.
The first challenge was getting the saddle on. I ride in a western saddle but with only one cinch and a different tieing system. Having got it on her back I must admit to asking Josh for some clues as to what to do.
The prepare to ride was mainly zone 3 or 4 driving to get a good forward walk, some backup and some direction changes. All designed to get her generally warmed up and in particular her back muscles (hence the backup). Then we did a few circles with some short spells of 3 and 4 track movement to give her a latitudinal stretch and to ensure she would yield sideways. I then deemed her ready to ride.
After the usual rope around check and getting a standstill I arrived at my first big challenge of the day. Mounting from the ground. I can confirm, she is taller than Bonitao. I really struggled to get my leg in the stirrup to the extent that she got antsy and started to move around a lot. James coached me through it and finally I got on vowing to improve my hip flexion further with some stretching at home.
Then we just sat and chilled for a while.
After some very very nice neutral lateral flexions we set off to get a forward walk. That was very easy, direction wasn't. James suggested that we play Tit for Tat. This means I let her take us somewhere and then I direct us somewhere else. Great for getting relaxation and rapport. Very soon she was much more relaxed, though we still had the odd "very forward" moment.
To start I also made the mistake of being too critical over her gait. If she trotted I did what it took to slow her down. James suggested being lighter and waiting for her to come back to me.
Once we had some relaxation and rapport I started working on the inside leg isolations. Oops, too much pressure. She a) turned very sharply, b) bought her head around in a very annoyed manner and c) swished her tail a lot. She is very very sensitive to the leg and I had just deeply offended her. We then spent some time exploring the leg pressure she felt acceptable, which to me was barely perceptible. Guess I'll have to get more subtle. James did comment that it looked very nice at this point, so progress was made.
Then came the next shock. We were to go for a short hack. Now I really understood the need for focus on a hack. She was interested but nervous about everything. She did a good job of breaking my focus to make me look at the big digger and, later, the llama. But other than that I managed ok. And so we made it back to the school in one piece. I got off buzzing with excitement. It feels like a new chapter of fun and learning has just opened up for Filly and myself. Can't wait until Monday to be down there again for another ride.
What did I learn. Filly is perfect for me. Principle number 7 is "horses teach humans and humans teach horses". Well Filly is going to be a great teacher, particularly at maintaining focus !! James and his team have put a great start on her, but she has loads to learn to get to and beyond level 4. Therefore, for my stage of learning horsemanship, I could not have a better partnership.
The day started watching James ride his big black show jumper. Very interesting to watch as always. He was working on getting a standard stride pattern at canter, with lead changes, between poles on the ground. That's an overview, the interest was in the detail which would take me hours to describe.
After that the other folks on their handovers had a lecture which I sat in on to save James the trouble of giving it again to me.
Then came the shock. Did I want to ride Filly ? I quick check that Josh's hat fitted and that was settled.
We got the colts out of their pens and brought them up to the indoor school. I guess I expected some coaching from James, but he just said "do what you need to prepare a ride practising inside leg isolations and no more" and left me to get on with it.
The first challenge was getting the saddle on. I ride in a western saddle but with only one cinch and a different tieing system. Having got it on her back I must admit to asking Josh for some clues as to what to do.
The prepare to ride was mainly zone 3 or 4 driving to get a good forward walk, some backup and some direction changes. All designed to get her generally warmed up and in particular her back muscles (hence the backup). Then we did a few circles with some short spells of 3 and 4 track movement to give her a latitudinal stretch and to ensure she would yield sideways. I then deemed her ready to ride.
After the usual rope around check and getting a standstill I arrived at my first big challenge of the day. Mounting from the ground. I can confirm, she is taller than Bonitao. I really struggled to get my leg in the stirrup to the extent that she got antsy and started to move around a lot. James coached me through it and finally I got on vowing to improve my hip flexion further with some stretching at home.
Then we just sat and chilled for a while.
After some very very nice neutral lateral flexions we set off to get a forward walk. That was very easy, direction wasn't. James suggested that we play Tit for Tat. This means I let her take us somewhere and then I direct us somewhere else. Great for getting relaxation and rapport. Very soon she was much more relaxed, though we still had the odd "very forward" moment.
To start I also made the mistake of being too critical over her gait. If she trotted I did what it took to slow her down. James suggested being lighter and waiting for her to come back to me.
Once we had some relaxation and rapport I started working on the inside leg isolations. Oops, too much pressure. She a) turned very sharply, b) bought her head around in a very annoyed manner and c) swished her tail a lot. She is very very sensitive to the leg and I had just deeply offended her. We then spent some time exploring the leg pressure she felt acceptable, which to me was barely perceptible. Guess I'll have to get more subtle. James did comment that it looked very nice at this point, so progress was made.
Then came the next shock. We were to go for a short hack. Now I really understood the need for focus on a hack. She was interested but nervous about everything. She did a good job of breaking my focus to make me look at the big digger and, later, the llama. But other than that I managed ok. And so we made it back to the school in one piece. I got off buzzing with excitement. It feels like a new chapter of fun and learning has just opened up for Filly and myself. Can't wait until Monday to be down there again for another ride.
What did I learn. Filly is perfect for me. Principle number 7 is "horses teach humans and humans teach horses". Well Filly is going to be a great teacher, particularly at maintaining focus !! James and his team have put a great start on her, but she has loads to learn to get to and beyond level 4. Therefore, for my stage of learning horsemanship, I could not have a better partnership.
No comments:
Post a Comment