So I took a little video of lunging the day of the lesson. Again, I had no one there to do it for me, so no video under saddle. She was definitely looking around at the new place. I just kept asking for something new each time she looked away to get her attention back on me. She was listening, even just to my body language without telling her to come down to the walk. But she still needs to keep her head to the inside better!
In the second video she was getting the idea that my attention was divided, and started getting a little quick. This is the trot that the trainer said "Needs to be erased from her vocabulary" when she's under saddle. So I am asking the same on the lunge line... at least when I'm paying attention! But look how strong her right lead is!
Sunday and Monday she had off. So tonight we got back down to work! We started by lunging over some trot poles again, and even a canter gymnastic. I kept the distance short so that she'd have to collect up a bit to do it. She was much more comfortable trotting in and cantering through so we mainly did that, and when she got the hang of it she could canter in just fine. Still nothing big, just letting her gain confidence in where her feet are at, letting her learn how to see the distances herself, and slowly build the strength so that the bigger fences seem just as easy. I forgot to video her doing. Which is ok since I don't think I could have made it work! So I tried taking a picture of it just to show, but I had it on video... lame. Here's a 3 second video of poles sitting still. Not as entertaining as poles with a horse going over them, but gives an idea what we're up to.
Overall tonight went well. I think she really likes the gymnastics on the lunge line. It changes things up. Then we lunged a little with the side reins on and I hopped on and tried to recreate the success from our lesson Sunday. I don't think I was holding myself together as well, but she is getting the idea and we got a few good circles of a real trot! We did one good canter depart. It wasn't perfect, but that's my issue. I have a tendency to "throw" horses into the canter rather than "lift" a horse into the canter. It something I'm going to be working on a ton while she's learning canter departs because its essential for her to do them properly. It was slick from the rain so I didn't want to push my luck doing very much tonight. She picked up the canter when asked, without rushing, so we called it good and went back to just a little more trotting so that she gets into the habit of going straight back to that balanced rhythmical trot and doesn't race around. Then we walked on a loose rein so that she could stretch her head down and relax her back. We ended by opening and shutting the arena gate! Gates are something I insist all my horses can do. But I'm still beaming with pride that she can do it.
Tomorrow she's got the day off again, then we'll be back at is full force on Thursday!
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