Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Truthful Tuesday

 

So the other day while I was washing Pammon off after our ride I did something or thought something or... well... something happened? I dunno. But there was something that I was like OH! That's a good Truthful Tuesday topic. But alas. I didn't write it down and all I can remember is having that thought. Seriously guys, the senility is hitting hard lately. But I DO have a confession today anyway. Even if it's not the one I apparently wanted to share. Hopefully that will come back to me. Anyway...

For reference, the white jump there on the left is the first of a diagonal line.
The out is another white jump kind of behind that purple one.

Today's confession is about the course in my ring. I set a new course Sunday after I finished riding and it's not my best work. I didn't really make a plan and it's just sort of meh. But it's fine. It will do for this week's lessons and I can change it up again after that. But that's not my confession. The confession is that I set one of the hardest things I could set for me and Al. And I didn't mean to! You'd think since I design my own courses that I wouldn't torture myself. But alas... So what's so hard you ask? I set a four stride line on the diagonal. Which isn't hard in and of itself. But what's hard is that it's off the right lead. If I come through from the far end toward the barn, that's easy enough (hopefully...) but it's if I jump it the other way that's stupid hard. Let me explain.

Al and I still have some flat struggles that we're working on. (I mean, there's always struggles amiright?!) One of them is tracking right at the canter. For whatever reason, I have the hardest time just cantering through the second turn on the short side of the ring closest to the in gate. It doesn't happen at the far end. And it's not unique to my ring. We had the same struggle in both the indoor and outdoor at the boarding barn too. It's nothing major. It's not like he stops cantering or anything dramatic. He just really wants to bulge through the turn and hug the fence. Like to the point where sometimes I hit it with my leg. When I attempt to correct he overdoes it and starts falling in. And in all my efforts to straighten him out, I wind up slowing him down so we lose some of our impulsion and all of our nice rhythm. So setting a line off a short turn out of this corner is pretty challenging. But I think it's a good challenge! If only that was the only hard part. The other hard part? The out is aiming at the corner he likes to spook at. So long story short, I imagine there will be an added stride at some point in my lesson tomorrow. Ha. Maybe not! But likely. I'll report back.

4 comments:

  1. getting past the gate to a short turn off the diagonal is hard for charlie too -- tho i'm not sure we have any one side that's notably worse than the other (vs being like... equally bad lol). maybe it's just like a big horse thing, but keeping that outside shoulder in line is just like, oof, a challenge lol

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  2. Keeping shoulders aligned at the canter is hard. I'll be interested to hear how your lesson goes.

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    1. SO HARD! The lesson went well, much better than I anticipated!

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