I had a fantastic lesson today in which I worked on posting on the correct diagonal. When I first started riding, however, Chester seemed a little off. He wasn't lame, but was putting one of his ears back, tossing his head, and seemed a little on edge. At first, Meghan though maybe is was because his ear hurt, but that didn't seem to be the cause. She soon decided to lunge him a bit as she thought maybe he hadn't been ridden during the weekend. Sure enough, that seemed to be the problem. Chester gave a few small bucks to let out the extra energy. Luckily he is a good horse and didn't do any of that when I was riding.
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| I love this picture! Beautiful. |
When I got back on, I picked up the trot on a 20 meter circle. After a bit I started a figure eight so I could work on posting on the correct diagonal and changing the diagonal. At first, I rode Chester at the walk a couple steps in between the two circles, then picked up the trot. There were quite a few times where I was on the wrong diagonal, so I walked and fixed it.
Later on, I worked on holding my two point for a few seconds the walk. Soon after Meghan told me to ride a few steps of sitting trot, then explained that I should do the same thing to change my diagonal if I was on the wrong one.
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| Holding two point. I'm leaning a lot forward, but at least my heels are down. |
I also did an exercise at the walk in which I closed my eyes and said “up” when the outside leg when forward. This exercise confirmed that I have a good feel for when the outside leg goes up. I probably just rush into posting rather than sitting a step and waiting for the outside leg to go forward. To test this at the trot, I closed eyes during the transition from walk to trot and started posting only when I felt the outside leg go up.
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| Nice picture too! |
Things were a bit better after that, though I still had to change my diagonal back to the correct one a couple times. By the end of the lesson, I had started to get a better feel for how posting on the correct should be like since I had been focusing on it the entire time. I just need to focus on it when I ride.
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| Bath time! |
After cooling down by riding around the barn and paddocks, I untacked Chester and hosed him off to get the sweat off and cool him down. When I put him away and began leaving, he followed me until he reached the end of his paddock. He had also perked his ears up and walked over to me when I first went to get hims. I think he likes my already!
Here's some pictures from today that I didn't know where to put.
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| Not a dressage test, but looks like with how square he is standing. |
