February 2 2013 Lesson #20

This week we worked on:

Flexion at walk in both directions
Flexion at trot w/ and w/out stirrups
Flexion at canter
20 m circles at canter over 4 poles (at tangent points C, M, H, X)
20 m circles at canter over jumps and poles. Jumps at M and H.
Walking out to cool down

I could have sworn I was making some progress with Dandy the big chicken, but apparently all went to waste this week haha! He decided to be spooky, and flighty but I guess thats how you learn to ride. I accepted his challenge. We did okay over the ground poles on the 20 m circle, he took some pretty big strides and took some effort to get over the pole at M near the viewing wall. I could tell without the jumps even set up he was high but we worked over that hurdle.

When we started jumping he decided to bolt, and over jump the jump by M. I must say I was really not expecting him to do that. Lets just say we now know I can jump over 3ft. :) It was quite a thrill. Then over the next jump he went into a choppy trot, and rocked back on his heels, refusing the jump entirely. I wasnt unseated, and since he was known to refuse I made him go over the little foot high jump from a stand still. I held on and he way over jumped it and went from standstill to mad gallop. We had a very entertaining lesson.  He also galloped and dead stopped into a wall throwing me way onto his neck, lucky for me I apparently have mad ninja skills and stayed on for the whole lesson.

The only reason he didnt spook when all of the snow came crashing down was because he thought it was Higgens (another horse in my class) snorting after his round.


Thanks to Dandy for giving me the ride(s) of my life.... literally :)