Filly hangs out with a freind

Apparently she stood for nearly an hour like this. She does not know it is a reflection of herself of course as horses are not self aware. She just thinks it's a really good and patient friend

Riding with Vicky at JRFS

I had a great time at JRFS last week. Went down on Tuesday afternoon and very reluctantly came home on Friday evening.

I wound up riding a lovely quarter horse called Dalton with Vicky, James Roberts fiancée, teaching me. Her riding is immaculate so she was exactly the person I needed to help sort me out. She was basically very supportive saying that I just needed a few tweaks to get things right. At the time I just thought she was being kind.
We worked on my basic position a bit, getting my heels down and toes out a little, loosening my shoulders etc. At the end of day one I felt I had made some progress.

Day 2 and I got to ride two horses. Brennan and Dalton. The snag with Brennan was that the English saddle was too small for me and the stirrup leathers way to short. This was not a part of the lesson, just an opportunity to ride a different horse for a short time. I really struggled to get into canter. Eventually I shifted my weight right back so that I was sitting on the point of the cantle. The next attempt and straight into canter. Whilst this was not an ideal scenario it really brought home to me the importance of the relative position of my weight to the T14 vertebrae. Something James had always spoken off, but to feel the effect first hand was very instructive.
The snag with riding in this saddle was I developed a huge sore on my left calf. No pain no gain I guess.

Day 3 and I had decided to raise the stirrups a little. This really helped and I felt much more in balance and connected to Dalton.

During all this we were also working on riding with collection at walk, trot and canter. To ride a well schooled horse really helped to get the feel.

Obviously I wasn't doing to badly as I then got to ride Dalton out on a quiet hack whilst Josh and Shelagh rode two young colts on their first ride out. All went very uneventfully.

When I got home I was keen to try out my new skills on Filly. I started by raising the stirrups two holes. The difference was amazing. We had a really really nice ride. Very nice balanced canters. Upwards transitions that were coming from my thighs alone. Downward transitions... that's a different story and we need to work on them. Not that she was running off, just maintaining gait and direction. Not a huge problem and one it will be fun to work through with her.

All in all this was a great experience. Vicky was right, there was not much I needed to change to get a huge improvement. It was impressive that she spotted this. Rather than trying to change everything she just spotted the key faults that would release the rest of my body into a better position.

One great ride and one "exciting" ride

Last Monday, prior to going to work I went for a quick ride on Filly. The plan was to take her to the outdoor school and basically just follow the rail. In the end it became much more than that.
After a normal prepare to ride with and emphasis on circling game and maintaining gait (a good preparation for follow the rail) I mounted as usual. It became immediately apparent that this was going to be a special ride.
Lateral flexions were very very light. Asking her to move of was just a squeeze of my buttocks, no leg at all. And so we went to follow the rail.
Filly had other ideas and I listened. She knew about other more interesting patterns such as clover leaf and point to point. She made it very clear, in a gentle way, that they would be more fun. Rather than tell her no I rolled with her ideas and directed patterns randomly. So we might be on the clover leaf pattern which on approaching a fence became point to point as she got to stop and take a breather. I tried to keep things consistent enough she didn't get worried, but varied enough to keep her brain occupied.
Once this was going well we started adding in changes of gait to up the interest even more. So a clover leaf at walk, then point to point at canter, then follow the rail at trot. She seemed to really enjoy herself, maybe because I was having so much fun and my body language showed it. At halt she regularly swung her head around to say hi and have her forehead rubbed. All in all one of the best rides I've had on her.

Now for the exciting ride. Ritchie and I arrived at the yard intending to work in the school again with our horses. But it was booked for a lesson. Plan B. We tacked up and took them to the big field to do prepare to ride. The field now has very long grass which Filly liked as she could take a mouthful without breaking gait. The grass is now too long to do any proper riding in so it was decided to take Filly and Bonitao for a hack down the local country lanes.
That is when it got exciting. Filly was hyper aware about everything. My only defence was to maintain a strong focus and do things to make her think about her feet. Thus we did lots of leg yields from one side of the lane to the other, straight for a bit and then back the other way. If she got more tense then leg yields became full sideways using the hedge to stop forward motion. Anything to make her concentrate on the job in hand. I discovered that she can trot sideways. For many folks on the outside I guess it would have looked like a horse barely in control, but all the manoeuvres were instigated by me, though maybe not always the gait they happened at. If she got really difficult then we just did hind quarter yield circles until she relaxed and we could walk straight for a little while.
I wouldn't call it a fun ride, but it was a satisfying ride all the same.