March showers bring...?

I'm sitting inside now with my husband watching basketball, lamenting this sad, rainy day / weekend. Luckily, I was able to work with both girls yesterday & made some good progress!

We'll start with Miss Meadow. I will need to get some pictures of me riding her soon, so that I can chart her progress photographically a little better, but until then, my written descriptions will have to do... First off, we're starting to get some shedding!! I don't think I've ever been so excited to have the horses start shedding--I hope it's a REAL sign that Spring is here to stay. But alas, I took Meadow to the indoor as I usually do on Friday afternoons, and I decided to really concentrate on trying to get some canter. Based on some tips & tricks I had been researching, I decided to try it a little differently by really holding her together into it, rather than trying to give her free rein & half-seat off her back. I also wanted to try to leg yield into it to set her up a little better. That was the plan, at least. You know what they say about plans...

So, we started to the left. I was getting decent leg yields, she had pretty good energy, was listening... all those good signs... but then, when I asked her to canter, rush rush rush. Ok, bring her back, try again. Again, rush rush rush. Okay, throwing the leg yield out the window, let's just try getting the depart into a corner. After about the 2nd try or so, she changed the rush rush rush to a kick-out / crow-hop combo. Actually, she threw a pretty decent buck one time too; enough to make me lose a stirrup, but luckily it was just the one, so not terribly scary. I would say we tried a good 5 or so times before FINALLY, she gave me a couple strides without resistance on the correct lead. I made her do it 2 more times to sink in & in our last attempt, we actually got half of a 20m circle on the correct lead. She was leaning in & terribly counter-bent, but I'll take it! The better news is that then, after a quick rest break, when we turned around to practice to the right, she picked that up right away. I was able to get full 20m circles to the right on two occasions, though again, leaning in & counter-bent. I was happy with that though, because I think she needed some proof that she could do it, and now that we both know that she can, we can start fine-tuning from here. Once we get the canter going, I really think that we can pass through Training Level fairly quickly as we're already practicing most First Level movements.

Making great progress with Elly!

When I got home, Erik scared the bejeezus out of me, because I didn't realize he was outside, but more importantly, we had a great conversation with our neighbor who volunteered to help us clear some of our back acreage for more horse pasture! That was super awesome & since I had Erik outside with me already, I had him help me a bit with Miss Elly! Now, here's the super exciting news. I had him hold the lunge-line again while I walked her around. He had to push her a few times, but she already is understanding what leg means and steering and brakes. Because she was doing so well at the walk--and incredibly calm--I decided to try a little trot. I expected 2 things: (1) her to get a little nervous feeling me bouncing around up there and (2) me to be thrown off balance initially depending on the trot she threw out. Well, with Erik's help, we asked her to trot and she picked up a steady, balanced, easy trot immediately. She kept her head still, her body straight, and didn't blink an eye about me being up there--and the trot was smooth & easy! We practiced walk/trot transitions for a bit and ended up doing a full trot circle each direction. To finish up, Erik let us off the lunge line & took a couple photos to commemorate the day! I was so proud of my little big girl! I have a feeling that she's going to surpass Meadow quickly... I'll probably get a full canter circle on her before Meadow masters it! All in all, in was a great day, and I'm itching to continue this great progress... Alas, the rain continues...