Lisa's Blog post # 42

What a difference a brief conversation can make! 

My ride on Cotton had been pretty bad – he just wasn’t listening to me!  I decided to end our torture session to go walk the steep hill.  We were up to 7 times.  I knew I could at least do that right! 

Lesley was out on Ollie and I stopped her to ask a quick question, “Our canter transitions were horrible!  Should I work on them again tomorrow or do something else?”

Lesley said, “He was probably long and strung out.  You need to get him connected.  Now that he’s walked the steep hill a few times he’s probably loosened up his back and can get it together.”

That’s all it took! 

Even though we had finished our ride her comment gave me hope that I could still salvage our day and redeem myself.  I gathered up the reins and gave Cotton the double leg squeeze into a rising trot.  He did feel better!  He was energetic behind and light up front. 

Now the real test…”and canter”.  Off he went!  Both directions!  Our departures weren’t as stellar as they have been before but they were 100% better than just a half hour ago.

When I got home I read up on the dressage training scale: Rhythm, Suppleness, Contact, Impulsion…  Bingo!  Cotton wasn’t going to get connected until he was relaxed and supple.  There I was riding him backwards again.

We had been working pretty hard for the past month and he was starting to show signs of fatigue so I was glad to give him a 3 day Thanksgiving vacation.   When I climbed up on him today he was refreshed and ready for action.

This time we did the hills first.  Then we did a variety of suppling exercises for his poll, neck and shoulders.  He was like putty in my hands (well, almost).  Then the real test came - trot/walk transitions on a circle.   This was the most success I had had riding him in his dressage snaffle without Lesley schooling him for me first!  He still wasn’t as consistently light and balanced as he gets when she rides him but he stayed fairly together and round and was not fighting the bit.

I called it a successful day!