back on the pony....
Oct. 22nd, 2007 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quietannI rode Bearito this morning. 90% of the lesson I stayed at the walk, no matter what everyone else was doing. Tina gave me some instruction on basic dressage "moves" like leg yielding, turn on the forehand, shoulder-in, haunches-in, and a tiny bit of sidepassing, all of which can be/are done at the walk. I have done all of this before, but not as intensively.
Leg yielding: making the horse face forward but move in a diagonal line. Read this from bottom to top, with horse's ears at the top of each line:
Turn on the forehand: horse's front feet stay in the same spot, and one reverses direction by having the back end of the horse make a semi-circle around the front feet, which turn in place. There is also turn on the haunches, but that's much harder.
Shoulder-in: the horse moves forward while facing diagonally with the shoulder away from the arena wall:
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Haunches-in: same as shoulder-in, except the horse's butt tracks away from the wall while moving straight forward.
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Sidepassing: horse faces forward but moves sideways:
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We also did a lot of small circles, concentrating on bending. Bearito was cranky but responsive when I knew what I was doing. He is entitled to a certain amount of crankiness as he's fairly elderly, and my lesson is the first work he gets after standing around all weekend.
Moment of pride: Windrush is owned by Marge Kittredge, who's a well-regarded dressage judge. She came to watch a little bit of our lesson, and said really nice things about how I was getting Bearito to straighten out when we were doing leg yielding. *That* made me smile, because she knows what she's talking about, and I've had lessons from her and she's very sparing with praise.
I was sore enough afterwards to decide that I did not want to ride Minnie, but I still went up to see her and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goddessfarmer. I watched goddessfarmer have a dressage lesson on Skippy, outside in a field (on this utterly gorgeous day!) My impression? Skippy is smart, and good, but he tests his rider.
Then I went over to groom Minnie... but when I got there, I had to do a good deed first. Minnie was stuck in the very muddy pig-pen, and she couldn't figure out how to get back out, so she was nickering and very unhappy. (The two gates she went through to get in there both were just barely open, and open in the direction she'd been moving, so she wasn't perceiving them as "open".) I grabbed Minnie's halter and went to rescue her, but when I got both the gates opened wide enough, she rushed through them and into her stall. After that she was very good; I took her out to graze and brushed some of the pig-pen mud off her. Picking out her feet was easy; she's more comfortable now that she has had her injection.goddessfarmer says she has actually calmed down since she started getting more feed, which is the opposite of what was expected, because more concentrated feed usually makes a horse "hot." I think we'll have a good ride on Friday, walking only of course, because I am injured and Minnie has been off work for nearly two months.
Leg yielding: making the horse face forward but move in a diagonal line. Read this from bottom to top, with horse's ears at the top of each line:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Turn on the forehand: horse's front feet stay in the same spot, and one reverses direction by having the back end of the horse make a semi-circle around the front feet, which turn in place. There is also turn on the haunches, but that's much harder.
Shoulder-in: the horse moves forward while facing diagonally with the shoulder away from the arena wall:
/
/
/
/
/
/
Haunches-in: same as shoulder-in, except the horse's butt tracks away from the wall while moving straight forward.
\
\
\
\
\
\
Sidepassing: horse faces forward but moves sideways:
||||||||
We also did a lot of small circles, concentrating on bending. Bearito was cranky but responsive when I knew what I was doing. He is entitled to a certain amount of crankiness as he's fairly elderly, and my lesson is the first work he gets after standing around all weekend.
Moment of pride: Windrush is owned by Marge Kittredge, who's a well-regarded dressage judge. She came to watch a little bit of our lesson, and said really nice things about how I was getting Bearito to straighten out when we were doing leg yielding. *That* made me smile, because she knows what she's talking about, and I've had lessons from her and she's very sparing with praise.
I was sore enough afterwards to decide that I did not want to ride Minnie, but I still went up to see her and
goddessfarmer. I watched goddessfarmer have a dressage lesson on Skippy, outside in a field (on this utterly gorgeous day!) My impression? Skippy is smart, and good, but he tests his rider.Then I went over to groom Minnie... but when I got there, I had to do a good deed first. Minnie was stuck in the very muddy pig-pen, and she couldn't figure out how to get back out, so she was nickering and very unhappy. (The two gates she went through to get in there both were just barely open, and open in the direction she'd been moving, so she wasn't perceiving them as "open".) I grabbed Minnie's halter and went to rescue her, but when I got both the gates opened wide enough, she rushed through them and into her stall. After that she was very good; I took her out to graze and brushed some of the pig-pen mud off her. Picking out her feet was easy; she's more comfortable now that she has had her injection.
goddessfarmer says she has actually calmed down since she started getting more feed, which is the opposite of what was expected, because more concentrated feed usually makes a horse "hot." I think we'll have a good ride on Friday, walking only of course, because I am injured and Minnie has been off work for nearly two months.
