Wednesday, November 4, 2009

11/2/09 Ransom Hunter

Wanting to bring variety to our rides, and to continually improve my hunter body position and "heels down", I grabbed my hunt saddle, let Ransom chew on his slow twist full cheek bit, and got to the arena.

He seemed pretty cooperative, I think happy to be working, and to be doing something different. It's a neat feeling having the shorter stirrup length, thus more calf pressure on him, and easier transitions.

I worked on lengthening out his trot again, switching from posting trot to two-point. I'm going to have to get some pointers on staying in a two-point trot, because it took quite the effort to keep him from launching into canter in two-point. I'm sure it's the history of all the jumping he's done.

Got some really awesome canter in as well. I did some canter in two-point, trying to reach forward with my upper body, and while he wasn't collected, he was certainly moving out. I'd call it a huge hunter-canter, certainly not a nice pretty ittie dressage canter.

Including his brief warmup, Ransom and I rode for about 40 minutes. Evening daylight is shrinking every day now, (stupid Daylight Savings Time) so there is much adjusting to do to my schedule to make daylight time to ride.

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