Cavaletti Clinic

 Well... Lyric was put on previcox for a few days to see if that would help her feeling of minciness... and then yesterday afternoon I noticed she was missing a front shoe. Um.... that's not going to help!!! And grrr... we have the cavaletti clinic tomorrow! Sadness.

I left her in with Dan last night figuring that would help her foot and then decided to try the clinic with her scoot boot and see. Maybe it would be enough to keep her comfortable. Or we could just do the walk stuff and then bail out. I'm going to lose my $75 regardless and it would be so educational for her if she could do it! So I tried. And... she was fine! She actually felt a hair better than the last ride. Although one circle she felt a hair mincy but then it went away. So we ended up doing the whole clinic. Yay!

It was a fun and educational clinic. They always are! Beth had set up four poles in an arc, like a part of a circle. The inside half of the poles was set for the walk and the outside half of the poles was set for a trot. We walked them... and then trotted them. Lyric was great. She bent around my leg and did well. I did have to keep her to a smaller trot to encourage her to sit and lift but it worked well. 

Then we played with transitions. We had to trot the trot poles, keep trotting and then right before the poles again, come to a walk and do the walk part, then pick the trot back up. It was helpful because we had to get the transitions smooth and then immediately get the walk how we needed it. Beth noted that I was getting pulled forward slightly (but enough) in the downwards, so she had me sit on my pockets and make sure I stayed tall and strong in my core. It helped a lot. And made her walk that much better too! Beth also noted that my right rein stayed floppy. She said that I needed some connection so that we could communicate. And while it's good that I have a nice outside rein connection, make sure she wasn't just hanging on it. Oh... doh! It's hard because she wants to overbend to the right, so I have such a steady outside connection to keep her neck straight, and then... nothing on the inside. So having a little bit of conversation with the inside rein did help. 

Then we moved on to the canter! She had us do the trot poles and then on the other side of the circle was a single offset pole. We trotted that pole, then turned the other direction and picked up the canter. We made an almost full circle at the canter and cantered over another single pole, and then came down to the trot and went back to the trot poles. So a figure 8. It was hard but helpful. Lryic's canter gets so big that it gets a little out of control. So Beth had me sit and keep it small! And that helped a lot. She also noted that I was tipping a bit when asking for the left lead canter, which was making it harder on Lyric. (Doh! Apparently I've figured it out with Funny but not with Lyric yet). So she had me sink my weight into my right foot before I asked for the canter. But we managed to get a few good rounds.