Awesome lesson followed by a great show!

Wow I'm so excited to be sharing all the success from this weekend!

I had the BEST lesson ever with Lola! I guess its a good sign that the trainer is worth my time and money if I say this after every lesson. We worked a lot on her trot and getting her to bend through her body on the circle. Same thing over and over, create a tempo, insist she keeps that tempo by using my body, push her to step under herself and lengthen her stride and lift her back by wrapping my legs around her and using my calves in rhythm. Sounds so simple, this is stuff I know, but somehow the trainer gets me to do it all at once and the result is that Lola looks and feels fantastic! Of course Lola started out by looking out of the arena, and doing her pitter-patter trot and going with her nose poking out. Then about half way through the lesson, we got a great trot going and the trainer says, "There! NOW you're trotting! She's finally tracking up. That's what you want. So your homework is to do this everyday until you get THAT trot!" So there's my homework. Then we worked on some bending through the corners and walking straight up center line. Luckily Lola halts square almost every time, its awesome, but we have a lot to think about and work on before the dressage show next Sunday!

Today's show was a blast. I think Lola was pooped from the lesson... me too actually. She was super relaxed at the show and not spooky or silly at all. There was such a difference between this and the last show. We did a walk-trot pleasure class, which we didn't place in, maybe because she was being a little pokey and not trotting out much, maybe just because she wasn't an Arabian. It was a breed show. She's not in a perfect frame yet, but she's going forward while accepting the contact and that's all I can ask for a horse at her level of training. She was cool as a cucumber from beginning to end though, and that is a huge step forward from the greenie scardy-cat she was at the show only a month ago.

I ran into a friend there who had her chestnut TB mare out since she's for sale. So we decided to enter the pleasure pairs class, and came out with second place! it was a blast look at the pictures because we were just stride in stride every time! We looked awesome! It was a really fun little class, and I was so impressed with how Lola handled that. We also had perfect trot in to line up and stopped square and beautifully! So we got some great pictures, and hopefully some video, but I don't have the time or energy to even look at it let alone make decisions on what to upload. So pictures will do for now!

I love this time of year with the poppies and pretty wild grass everywhere. YEAH FOR SPRING!!!!