I had been wondering if our good lessons were just flukes or if Axel would remember what he learned from week to week. Well this week he proved he is retaining what we teach him. We probably trotted for nearly an hour and he was very willing. He's bending more without me having to do contortions to keep him that way. And now he's even using his rear end a lot more. He's still tripping quite a bit but hopefully we can get that sorted out with the farrier.
And apparently some of this "stuff" that riding instructors tell you do actually work. There's actually some sort of connection between the rider doing things right and the horse being able to do things right. Even an unexperienced horse will start doing what you want when you get out of his way and ride properly. Imagine that. So rumor has it that my riding has improved quite a bit from this winter. Since I've been concentrating so much on getting Axel to move and bend and all that, I've been less concerned with things like "sitting up straight" and in turn things are falling into place a lot easier.
Most of tonight's lesson was concentrated on how I ride. I've gotta work a bit more on how I post but my sitting trot is getting a lot better. For the last portion of the lesson we worked on trotting on the circle and downward transitions to walk without having Axel yank the reins out of my hands or fling himself onto his forehand.
Tricia will probably ride him on Saturday so he'll have to work for her but then Monday we head out for a big trail ride. Hopefully both horses will enjoy a change of pace and not hate me forever for making them ride in a trailer for 4 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment