Lesson 3/5/12

20 meter circles

I'm very happy to say that this lesson was one of the best ones I've had in a long time. Kilo is finally - finally - starting to get better. He is still getting over his Lime disease, but this time in the barn he did not bite at me that much once I smacked him a couple times. He actually seemed relatively happy for once, and I could do all of the grooming and tacking up myself. At first I thought he was so much better because Chester wasn't in front of us (the lady who rides him wasn't there), but my instructor just said that it's most likely because he's healing. Anyway, I got up to the ring on time and without incident, which was a huge relief and pretty much set the stage for the rest of the lesson.

Tonight we practiced our 20 meter circles again. This time we learned there are actually three places that you can make one of these circles: one in the middle, and two on each end of the dressage ring (see picture - I added the circles!). The circles start at A, B, and C, which you can kind of see in the picture. We all practiced doing these circles at a trot, each of us starting at a different letter and completing the circuit - that is, doing a circle at A, trotting around the ring, doing a circle at B, and so on. It got a little tricky when we weren't evenly spaced out, so we had to slow down or speed up to avoid crashing into each other.

 In order to do the 20 meter circle correctly, you're supposed to be practically touching the side of the ring whenever you're near it. I have a hard time with this because I don't really try hard enough to get my horse closer to the side, so most of the time I end up cutting off the corner and making the circle smaller. I know I can get Kilo closer to the side, but I don't know, I usually just don't try hard enough. So next week one of my goals is to perfect my circles and actually make them the correct size.

After doing this circuit thing three whole times through - trust me, it was exhausting - we all got to canter. We again did the thing where we all get in a line and take turns cantering until we catch up to the next person. Before I went, my instructor told me to try asking for the canter on what is called the upbeat. When you're doing a posting trot, and sitting up and down, usually I ask for the canter when I sit down. For me it just seems easier because you can start sitting with the canter as soon as your horse switches gaits. But this time, she told me to ask when I was up in the saddle, turning from my center to get the correct bend, and to then start sitting to the canter. This confused me because I didn't see how that could possibly work, but I tried it anyway - and it didn't work. I actually got Kilo to canter, but I didn't sit soon enough once he started so he just went right back down to a trot. The next time, I asked for the canter in the upbeat and sat as soon as I felt Kilo change gaits. It actually made a lot of sense once I did it. The transition was actually a lot smoother as it didn't involve the bouncy sitting trot that I usually do beforehand. After I got the canter I continued down the long side before I stopped. My instructor said that it looked really good, and I was very happy with it too. Luckily, that's where the lesson ended. I'm hoping next week's lesson will be even better and Kilo will be almost back to normal!

Before I end this post, I just wanted to mention something sad I heard the two other riders talking about. The guy who rides with us used to have a horse named Sky, until very recently when he had to be put down. From what I heard, he had something wrong with his digestive system and couldn't eat properly. I was very sad to hear this, because I remember seeing Sky at the barn every Sunday when I work for as long as I've worked there. The day before my lesson, when I found out about this, Sky actually wasn't in the paddock with Moo (the guy' s brother's horse) when I came to feed them. I thought it was weird, and just assumed he was somewhere else for the time being. Moo also had seemed kind of upset - he was kind of walking all over and seemed to want my attention more than usual. As soon as I heard the guy say that, it all made sense. It's a very sad thing, but I thought you all should know. My thoughts are with Sky's owner. Rest in peace, Sky.

Lesson 2/27/12

Sorry for missing last week's post. I just never really got around to it.

Anyway, my lesson on Monday was really good, and really bad at the same time. As I've said before, Kilo has been very grumpy down in the barn, and lately he's gotten worse. Apparently he had Lyme disease, not rain rot, which has made him really sensitive. This week, Kilo was trying to bite me before I even got him out of his stall. I hooked him up to the cross ties, and even at this point I was really cautious and nervous that I was going to get bitten. I guess I kind of worked myself up a lot into getting so nervous that I couldn't really do anything near Kilo. Horses sense that kind of thing, so Kilo probably knew I was scared and used that as an opportunity to try and intimidate me more. After waiting for someone to come down and help me, the barn owner came down. She tacked him up herself, which really makes me feel useless. I feel like it's my fault that I was too scared to do it myself, which it partially was, but I just hate the feeling of being incapable of doing something as simple as that.

The owner told me that horses in the wild will come forward to another horse that is threatening them in order to try and make them take a step back. She said that when Kilo tries to bite me, he wants me to get intimidated and step back, which of course I do because I'm so nervous. I really need to just toughen up and not allow him to do that and let him know it won't work. Next time I will do that!

After that whole ordeal that I'm trying not to dwell on too much, I headed up to the ring with a somewhat happier Kilo. For some reason that I don't understand, he seems to get over his grumpiness as soon as we're out of the barn. He still tries to bite me occasionally but not as much. Up in the ring (I was about ten minutes behind everyone else because of the waiting) I got on Kilo as soon as I could and joined the warm up.

Before I continue I just wanted to let you all know that the dressage show is on April 21st. I'm still planning on participating, I just want to get to a place where I am comfortable with my horse first, which right now I'm not really feeling that way yet. Where I was headed with that announcement is that the dressage ring is now set up in the big ring (which is now back in the place it used to be, on the far side of the riding ring), so the area that we ride in is a bit smaller.

Because the dressage ring was set up and most of us said we were planning on being in the show, our instructor had us practice walking down the center line from letter A to C. It was hard because if you didn't have your horse going fast enough, he wouldn't stay straight. We did this for a while and then we practiced some 20-meter circles. If you don't know what those are, you can look back at my posts from last year on the dressage show and get updated on all this stuff. After that we trotted. Since there were so many of us in a relatively small area, we mostly took turns trotting until we caught up to the horse in front of us.

Tonight I got to canter for the first time in months which I was so excited about! Also, I've never cantered on Kilo so that was exciting too. We again took turns going, so each of us could have plenty of room to canter a couple steps before catching up to the next person. The first couple of times I went, I didn't canter because my reins were too long. Also, I had to get Kilo into a really energetic trot before he would go. The third time or so I went, Kilo started to canter. His canter felt kind of lumbering almost, but unfortunately I don't really remember exactly how it felt. The next time I went, I got to canter down the long side and it felt really awesome. My instructor and the barn owner, who was watching, both said that it was a very nice stretch of canter. The owner said the Kilo actually looked like a normal horse too for once (he has large shoulders and usually looks kind of clumsy). After that, I was pretty satisfied with my lesson. Obviously not with the previous issues in the barn, but for the moment I could forget all of that and just enjoy the night.