In yesterday's lesson I got to ride the greenest horse in the lesson program. He's actually 6 years old and has been worked on extensively by my instructor and ridden by other lesson students, so I can hardly pretend it was a huge challenge.
There were a couple things he would do that emphasized I needed to be gentler with him:
He would start cantering if I asked too strongly for a trot.
He would bulge his shoulder out if he didn't want to move away from his friends (I am still learning to deal with that better).
And he would make this horrible grinding sound on the bit if I was putting too much pressure - it was like the audible manifestation of his building anxiety. When we were watching others take their turn at the jump, I would let the reins go down to the buckle to chill him out (unless he'd try to eat giant splinters of the indoor - why do they DO that?!)
We worked on jumping 2' jumps, including an oxer and an imitation of a rolltop (the things you can do with polls and cavalleti blocks!) and I really just focused on keeping control until the end and then not getting in his way. I'm sure a more advanced rider could figure out how to keep their leg on without overdoing it with him, but for a first time jumping a somewhat-green horse, that was my method and it worked fairly well.
I'm excited to ride him again in the future. Because our lesson program is small, I can keep track of how everyone is progressing and I don't want to fall behind everyone else! Of course, when everyone else gets to ride 3+ times as much as you do per week, there's only so much you can do!
There were a couple things he would do that emphasized I needed to be gentler with him:
He would start cantering if I asked too strongly for a trot.
He would bulge his shoulder out if he didn't want to move away from his friends (I am still learning to deal with that better).
And he would make this horrible grinding sound on the bit if I was putting too much pressure - it was like the audible manifestation of his building anxiety. When we were watching others take their turn at the jump, I would let the reins go down to the buckle to chill him out (unless he'd try to eat giant splinters of the indoor - why do they DO that?!)
We worked on jumping 2' jumps, including an oxer and an imitation of a rolltop (the things you can do with polls and cavalleti blocks!) and I really just focused on keeping control until the end and then not getting in his way. I'm sure a more advanced rider could figure out how to keep their leg on without overdoing it with him, but for a first time jumping a somewhat-green horse, that was my method and it worked fairly well.
I'm excited to ride him again in the future. Because our lesson program is small, I can keep track of how everyone is progressing and I don't want to fall behind everyone else! Of course, when everyone else gets to ride 3+ times as much as you do per week, there's only so much you can do!
No comments:
Post a Comment