Thursday, February 11, 2010

2/6/10 Applying the Ride After

Jen came to the house in the afternoon, and found Ransom and I in the arena warming up. I wanted to show her the new things I learned, and begin applying them to everything I already knew.

She helped me "feel" the two point and half seat a little bit better. I did it long enough that "right" felt good. I wasn't sore or tense anywhere in my body, and it felt pretty stable. I spent most of the lesson ride at the trot, with just a little canter to avoid getting bored.

Then we set up the ground poles for trot. Only 2/3 of the arena is dry, but there's enough room, I now know. I worked him over the poles a few times, and added in half-halts in the middle of the poles. We worked in both directions quite a few times until the releases and the half-halts were all giving a consistent trot over the poles and away. It did take a while, and is going to continue to take repetition, but we've got a plan.

Ransom took a good stumble out of the poles one time, but managed to keep his Momma on board - *whew*

Total ride, around an hour. Pretty darn fun!

2 comments:

SunnySD said...

What a fantastic experience! I just stole a few minutes to read the whole thing, and I 'm hoping to get a chance to watch it at some point :)

Jennifer said...

Thanks for reading & commenting!!!