Our First Dressage Lesson

So my head is swimming with the huge amount of things I have to think about all at once. Axel and I had our first Dressage lesson tonight. Riding and unfinished horse is a whole new can of worms for me. I think in the long run it will make me a better rider but the road there is going to be pretty bumpy.

We went up the hill where there's some level ground to work on. Unfortunately the bugs are already bad. There was a little head tossing because of the bugs, some snatching at the reins, and some pawing before the lesson was over.

We started with a walk in a figure 8 to get him to start bending. He needs a lot of support from me which is something I am certainly not used to. Lots and lots of leg, thus me sitting on the heating pad. I probably won't be walking too well tomorrow, yikes. So I use as much leg as I can and loose my seat more than I'd like to. I stiffen up my shoulders and back and my arms lock up. I throw away the outside rein and Axel drops his shoulder right into the empty space. And I cross over my outside rein too much. Luckily Tricia is able to see all this and try and keep me on the right track so we can keep Axel on the right track.

I'm a little afraid I didn't give him enough release from pressure when he did something right but I guess we'll see how things go next week. We attempted a trot but it didn't go very well. It was hard to get him into the trot in the first place, and then keeping him from falling out on that shoulder just wasn't happening, he just wasn't sure how to carry himself in the trot either. We went back to the walk but he kept calling back to the horses back at the barn, snatching the reins, and falling to the outside and wandering off.

We were going to head down to the other pasture where the bugs weren't as bad but we stopped in the woods where there's a little circle to work there for a bit. I was having a heck of a time getting him to bend past the exit of the woods, I was kicking like crazy to keep him moving and trying to keep some action on the outside rein so he'd move off it, he'd stop, snatch the reins, paw the ground. After much fighting we made it around successfully enough to praise him and stop for the night.

I think Sunday morning I'll do some work on the ground with lateral flexion and maybe do some work over poles. Something he can succeed at easily and get rewarded for but at the same time will benefit our training. I don't want him to hate me for making him work, I think he was a little frustrated by the end.