The lesson wasn't so much dressage as it was bareback riding. Tricia told me to let Axel wander around the round pen wherever he wanted to go as long as he kept walking. I dropped the reins and put my hands on my hips and off we went at a walk. So bareback at the walk, that's no big deal. As we're wandering around, at a pretty nice walk for once, I thought she completely lost it when she said we'd be doing this at the trot soon. I figured she meant sometime in the future, not that same lesson! So we wandered at the walk and I tried to not get too worried about the upcoming trotting.
The idea was that since I wasn't steering at all, I'd have to learn to sit properly in case Axel took off in an unsuspected direction. Tricia assured me that Axel's trot was nothing to worry about, but I made her promise to catch me when I fell. I had hoped we'd keep walking for a while but it was time to ask for a trot. Just so you don't forget, this was me, on a horse, with no saddle, and essentially no bridle, trotting. I asked for the trot (we were tracking right) and I got the typical mellow Axel trot. It took us a few tries before he'd keep trotting around more than a few strides without stopping. But after a couple times I was feeling pretty good, and Axel kept on the circle without being asked. Tricia got me a lead rope with a popper so if he stopped I could escalate my request and teach him that it was more comfortable to keep doing whatever he's doing unless I ask otherwise. It really didn't take much before I barely squeezed and he'd go, not even getting a chance to use the popper. So that lesson was learned.
After a few times around at the trot Axel started to get kind of annoyed or sore, or something. The ground is hard now, they just had their feet done recently, Axel might have a stifle issue, or he's just plain cranky. In any case, his first few protests were just flinging his head around. His next protest was a huge buck (huge for Axel). At that point I did grab some mane when I asked for the next few trots, just in case. I stayed on though. It may have been a big buck but it didn't really unseat me at all. He settled in finally and we trotted around for ages and I felt pretty darn good about it. I asked him to stop (no where near the gate) and let him stand there for a while as a reward. Now it was time for the bad side (tracking left). It started out a bit bumpy. Axel bends to the outside going this way and I was certain my knee was going to get smashed on the panels of the round pen. He was cranky going this direction and had a few "moments" where he'd speed up and I'd feel like I was going to loose it, but I held it together. Only ending up on his neck once and I can't even recall what he did that unseated me so much. I don't remember the point when he finally loosened up and went with it, but all of a sudden we noticed he wasn't bending to the outside any more and he wasn't getting angry when I asked him to keep trotting. And I only almost lost my knee twice.
He was getting a little close to the fence so I asked him to move away and that's when he started choosing random directions to go in. He'd track left for a while, then switch and track right, or make a smaller circle in the middle. Once his direction choice caught me off guard but I remained on his back. Hey if the ground was hard enough to hurt his feet, it's sure gonna hurt me if I fall off, right?! He was really loose and feeling okay about it at this point. I had picked up the reins at the buckle just in case, since previously he had been threatening to buck, but I kept them as loose as possible. I was very surprised at how easy it was to sit his trot bareback. Granted he wasn't using his rear end much at all, making for a smoother trot for me. We stopped in the far "corner" and stood for a bit and I dismounted. Luckily this week he wasn't drenched in sweat. His belly was a bit damp but cold so we fed him in the barn and then turned him out with the rest of the herd.
So overall the lesson for me was balance, and the lesson for Axel was that if he kept doing what he was asked even on a long rein (or no rein), we'd leave him alone. After last weekend's walk through the woods with a saddle and no rider, and now this week's loose rein bareback lesson, I'm hoping he starts relaxing a little bit and not loosing interest. I'm not sure if we can start looking for changes yet as far as his joints go. we've been giving him Senior Flex for only a week now I think. It'll probably be a week or two more before we can start seeing any improvements if there are going to be some. He did settle in tracking left fairly easily, maybe that's because of the supplement, who knows.
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