This video is of what we ended on for me, and I was pleased as punch with it!
We finally got back to the eventing trainer that we worked with last fall. I like her a lot, and she competes at a really high level so I'm actually really lucky to have the chance to ride with such a talented trainer! I just have to catch her when she's not off at a competition! So for now we're making it work by doing Tuesday evening lessons.
She immediately commented how much better Lola's trot looked. (Also something my dressage trainer has been commenting on lately, she actually has some nice suspension when she trots now!) She made me redo at least one of my canter transitions. I know they suck, and I know that I need to ride her correctly and expect nothing but correct transitions, but I just tend to let it slide...not acceptable!
We worked on a cross rail first. Trotting in and then turning right even though it was fairly sharp. She did this so that we could get Lola's attention right away, she had to sit back and re-balance herself to make the turn.Then we switched directions and cantered in. Lola was such a star! I was surprised how easy and fun it was to canter the fences! I just planted my hands on her neck a few strides out, which meant asking her to finish her turn with my body only, and she want through just fine! She didn't rush, we had a pole on the ground to help back her off, she only got funky striding a few times, and then she figured it out and her jump got noticeably better when she jumped from the base of the jump. I could actually feel the difference!
Then we moved on to the exercise in the video up top. We of course started by trotting in the first few times, then came the fun of cantering in! Since it was down the center of the rather small arena, this meant really hard turns! At least hard for me and Lola at the canter. We made it though! Never missed it once. She really just locked on to the jump after the turn, so even if we came out pretty wide, she'd move through the gymnastic a little off center but stay straight and true through the jump! Such a good girl. By the last time I realized that I should have asked her to video this! Whoops. So we just got the last go.
She brushed fence in that first time in the video, which I thought was funny since it didn't seem like she was rushing. When I went to look at the video, this was why:
She didn't jump the two raised poles! She just cantered right through, and so she actually had her back legs split going over each pole! So she brushed. But the jump actually looking great in a still!
Then I had the trainer hop on. I think this will be really helpful to have her school her a little each time to sort of clean up a few things that I tend to leave messy. (Canter departs for example "du jour".) She was getting tired by then since the weather decided to make a sudden change for the upper 90's! But she tried her little heart out anyway. One of the things that she really worked on was the turn. Lola had done them alright for me, but I think that both Lola and I were convince they were too hard, so the trainer was able to school her on them and convince her that she could turn tighter and re-balance! She also stopped her after the jump instead of cantering on like I had. This totally confused Lola the first time! She tried left, then tried right, then desperately tried left again, but the fence was there, so she stopped. Next go, she got it a little better. By the third go, she had stopped perfectly about 1o feet before the fence! Got it!
She is such a sweet little star. Despite the fact she literally had sweat dripping off her nose, she was trying her best, and even cantered perfectly through on the last go even though it was hard for her and she was tired.
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