Lesson for the Slutty Girl

 Oh Lyric!! Girl.... keep your panties on! ha ha.

 

I opted to take Lyric for my lesson today. Kelly could only teach me on one horse, so..I figured it was probably worth getting her take on the saddle and to get help with Lyric since Funny and I were still working on our homework. I almost instantly regretted it though. ha ha. She was in raging heat and saw some other horse that she didn't even know was there til it walked away, walk away, and danced around on the lead rope while still tied to the trailer. Screaming the whole time too! Then I managed to get her tacked up and went to the arena to warm up and she was distracted but functioning. And then Kelly came down... and then Prairie and Caroline walked by on their geldings and Lyric lost it! Screaming... spinning.... threatening to rear! Oh girl.... get it together!

 

So... Kelly put us to work quickly. She had me trot and then do a 20 meter circle, then spiral down to a 15 meter circle, then a 10 meter circle... and then back to a 15 and then back to 20 and repeat. And fairly quickly, Lyric settled and forgot about the boys. Phew! So we went to work. We had a great lesson. We focused on keeping her between the aids... two hands and two legs. And ideally, inside leg to outside rein but... at the current moment, it's inside leg to outside rein tracking left, and outside leg to inside rein tracking right. Lyric does NOT want to aknowledge or have any contact with the right rein. And it's evident because she drops her right ear. And as Kelly pointed out, it's glorious that her ears are ginormous because it makes it easy to tell when she's crooked. Ha ha! So, instead of letting her throw her haunches in, her shoulders out, and twist her neck... we're just going to counterbend a little and ride the "better bad". It's easier to fix her falling in with her whole body than it is to fix a twist. So... tracking left, I just rode inside leg to outside rein and kept a soft contact with an even connection. If she fell in, I used my inside leg. I could also leg yield out to get her into that outside rein. And we got some nice work. She really doesn't want to take that right rein so it was hard but.. the leg yielding and also, shifting the center of my seat over to the inside of the saddle, helped square me, which helped her. It also made it evident that she kept throwing me to put weight in my outside leg. (Or its' become a habit) So I had to focus on sitting on the inside seat bone and weighting that inside leg instead.  We did lots of leg yields to V/R and then half 15 meter circle and leg yield back to S/whatever that other letter is. But then when we went to the right, she was very happy to go into the left rein but almost cheated by overbending and creating a false connection with the twist. So I had to watch her ears, and when her right ear dropped, counterbend to get her straight and even again. Then as she squared up, I could soften the counter bend, put my inside leg on, and ask for a tiny bit of bend. And by golly it worked! We got some nice work that way too! We also incorporated leg yields there. And some 10 and 15 meter circles. Oh, and... after our leg yields, if I didn't circle, she wanted me to shoulder in. 

 

We took a breather and I mentioned to Kelly about the saddle, so... she said she didn't see any glaring issues with it and Lyric seemed pretty happy, so... yay! So then we cantered. And at first her canter was explosive and wild, but I was able to settle it pretty well. And she had me come out of the canter and then immediately turn and do a leg yield. And that really helped balance her back again quickly! And some of our trot work now even had Lyric lifting her back and feeling amazing! It was so nice to have her really feel connected to both hands and both legs and both seat aids and to also be able to feel her back lift and her mouth be quiet. yay!

 

So, a very good lesson. After that we hacked to the lake so she could drink. And she did. And splashed. Good girl! Then we headed down racoon loop, over the bridge, and up sideways. I figured some hill work would help that hind end too!