Sunday, February 25, 2018

Bouncing along

Hello, how has everyone been?  Here in Indiana we've been alternating between freezing temps or endless rain and mud!    Stella had long periods of vacation time, punctuated by one or two rides with lots of bucking, then more vacation.  I think we have finally reached temps worth riding in so I've started up taking lessons again! 

Last weekend we hauled up and had a grids lesson.  Grids for me are a bit of a challenge, I had a horse that either ran through them or stopped in them so I'm a bit of a mess.  It's hard for me to encourage the horse to be forward and straight through a grid while at the same time staying out of the way. 

It was also a bit of a challenge for Stella, who is very careful with her feet and was a bit overwhelmed a few times with all the poles and an occasional lack of guidance from yours truly. 

What I like was how, as Stella became bolder and tuned into the grid, I was able to focus on how my position felt over the fences, and what the difference was between jumping up her neck or staying over my stirrups. 


We still had a set back after our cool down period, where we both lost a bit of confidence and Stella wasn't ready to go back to work, and I wasn't really to be supportive through the grid.  I think I'm finally grasping the whens and whys of when Stella loses confidence in me, but I'm still working on fixing that issue!

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