Great Lesson

 Well.. those new shoes Patrick put on behind might have done the trick! Lyric only bottomed out once or twice today and not that bad. Whoo hooo! Fingers crossed. 

We had lessons with Kelly Eaton today.  Since Dan had hacked Friday with Sharon I decided to ride him first so that I could hack after my second lesson with Lyric and give her more time in the woods. And then I might have had more time to warm her up too. Since the first lesson was at 7:45 am. ;) So Dan went first. Even though both of them were snoozing when I got up to feed. After his lesson I came and got Lyric and she is in raging heat so she came running back to greet Dan. Handy... now she's right there for me to catch. :) I did hose her off before we hauled because I didn't want her to get sweaty in the trailer. Even though she wasn't sweaty yet. She was dry when we got to Ashland though!

 

I tacked up and took her for a warm up hack around Heron Lake. We had plenty of time so then I also went around down to the beaver dam and then back up. They're already working on the bridge Dan fell through, so yay! We walked back to the arenas and Danielle was still having her lesson. Poor Sparrow had a meltdown when she got on because there was a lot of commotion. I had pulled in and I'm sure my rig was loud... then I unloaded... then about 5 little ponies descended into the upper dressage arena..  And apparently they had migrated to the jump arena shortly after, so.. she was back on him but was walking only. And they were still working through things so I just played in the upper arena for a bit. Lyric was a bit squirrely herself today. She was jumping at every little thing and a bit snorty and spooky. I tried to let her do a stretchy trot to warm up but there was too much noise from the jump arena. It's just hard when you're a young squirrely thoroughbred and there's noises and bobbing heads up above you. So... we went back to contact trotting and did some serpentines and then just walked. It was getting hot and I didn't want to over do it. And I figured she was almost done anyways. So we played with turn on the forehand and turn on the haunches. And... Lyric does NOT want to turn on the haunches moving her shoulders to the left. Which makes sense... she can't haunches in left and stay in the left bend. So... noted. 

 

And then it was our turn. So then we headed down to the small arena and started our lesson. I told Kelly she had been doing great but we were bouncing around being a little too on the forehand vs a little too braced and I wasn't getting an even contact in the reins... she wanted to hang on the left one no matter which direction. But I also told her that our canter had gotten better and the transitions were better. And I told her about the shoes. She wanted us to show her what we had and we picked up the trot. And pretty quickly she had me bring her back to the walk and get a better walk first. She wanted her slower... rounder... slower... more rocked back. Way more than I was happy with. But, I could feel the difference. And she got quite nice. We worked on getting proper bend too, and riding her shoulders. Basically... get her shoulders straight and in front of her hind end and she'll be straight. So, tracking left I have to put my left leg farther back (not stuck in the girth groove) and think I'm almost pushing her haunches out and ride shoulder in too. This gets her straight. Tracking right, she falls in hard core. So I need to open my outside (left) rein to give her a place to move into, use my inside leg, but also while keeping my hand low, bring my inside hand to her withers, to help push her shoulder out. And it works!! And in my brain, she's a bit overbent both directions, but she's not. She's actually round and using her back and hind end. This works at the walk and the trot and the canter. I have to do it in all three gaits. My other take aways are to keep my hands low... keep my elbows at my side but soft... instead of giving/allowing forward with the reins and letting her dump on the forehand, stay firm and give/allow with an opening rein and a very slight softening. 

 

Kelly told me that I was correct in my riding and to not let Lyric convince me I was wrong and give up too quick. She told me to ask, and keep asking for at least 20 twenty meter circles. Go through my checklist but if I'm doing all the things right... and she's not complying.. give it 20 circles. If she still doesn't get it by then, maybe I'm wrong. But luckily Lyric usually only takes 2 or 3 circles. (Funny might be a whole other story! Ha!). And start with a lovely collected walk. Then ask for the trot. And then only ask for the canter when the trot is lovely.  We also played with leg yields and I have got to let go of the inside rein, because once I do that, she gets straight and soft. Ahhhh... But I do have to "cheat" and do "bad leg yields" to the right and ask her to lead with her shoulders because she wants to not be straight. 

 

Oh, and we also did snowmen. I mentioned that while she felt good and lovely, I felt a little bit like I was just hanging with the outside rein. But at least it was the outside rein both ways this time. So she had me do snowmen... 20 meter circle bodies and then 10 meter circle heads. I had to ride the 10 meter circle only using the outside rein. And then the big circle only using the outside rein. I mean... technically I could use the inside rein for flexion but I had to give and release and be very soft with it. Like.. barely use it. It was more bend created with my inside leg than with my inside rein. And then that meant on the outside rein I had to give and release. And it worked! She got much softer and I got softer and then I had an even connection in both reins. COOL! We did one canter and Kelly was like "Soooo much better" almost under her breath in a "thank goodness, cause it was horrible" kind of way. Ha ha. I'm sure she didn't mean it like that but I was like "Yep.. this is better and this still isn't great but the beginning was so hideous it's not hard to be better". But also, todays canter was not as good as it has been at home, so... that's okay. We only cantered one way and then ran out of time, but I went ahead and cantered the other way too after my lesson.

 

So yep.. very lovely ride. Kelly was pleased with her progress, as was I. And she only lost her hind end slightly twice. Yay! So then we went to the lake so she could splash and get a drink, which she did. Then we hacked back home. Good pony! It was hot but not too terrible yet. There was a lovely breeze today and some dark clouds that covered the sun at times, which helped. Plus it was cooler in the woods, partly in the shade.