Prince: Hmmmm.... Maybe a little bit better?

Oct 18 2010

Okay so today I remembered to warm up strong to ride soft. It seemed to help a little bit.

We did more circles. Prince cantered well to the right and tried really hard when going to the left but he still had trouble getting that left lead. Eventually he was able to get it for about 1/2 a circle then I brought him in. We also did Figure eights at the trot/canter. Prince cantered through the middle nicely.  

When I mounted up Prince and I did some Figure eights at the trot. Prince totally amazed me! He trotted them beautifully and was so light!! He responded to my body and focus well and even when I needed to use my reins he was very light and didn't brace. 

Then we did some walk/trot transitions a long the rail. The barrels just "happened" to be along the fence and so we jumped over them. There were a couple cool things (1) being that I was able to ride it really well and fluidly and (2) Prince was 100% relaxed and after he jumped it he kept on trotting at the same pace he was trotting at before he jumped it, which was a nice, slow sitting trot trot ;) We did it in both directions. Both were really amazing! 

My mom had set up a little "L" shaped lane with some poles and then had the barrels set up to go sideways over after she had backed Knightly through the lane. So after she was done I asked Prince to back through it and then we went sideways over the barrels. One thing that really jumped out at me today was how since I have been trying to get this whole cantering thing working I have neglected almost everything else, things like direct and indirect rein, sideways, and a lot of other things. Maybe a touch of direct lineness??

We did have some success cantering. The thing that made the biggest difference was that I wasn't waiting for Prince to truly cross his hind legs over before I asked for the canter. He still had more trouble going to the left but eventually he got one good canter to the left so we stopped there. 

I wanted to play with getting indirect rein with out using my reins so did that last. At first Prince was making assumptions and so I just stayed with it until he started trying something else. He figured it out pretty quickly and when we ended he was responding off of just my body. We still need to play around with him not moving his front feet, which he does a little, but we shall get it. 

So over all it was a good session. I walked away with lots to think about... which has been happening lately ;) 

Naturally,

~Keri