After a lovely sleep in (7am for me) I laid in bed thinking that it has been almost 2 weeks since I'd been for a ride. I had even missed my last two dressage lessons, once because of me and once because one of Kim's horses got sick. I hadn't ridden Teddy because I gave him a week off due to his girthiness and then I just got either lazy or it rained after work or something happened where I couldn't leave work in time to have enough day light to ride. I so miss daylight savings time!
So looking out the window I could see the sun was out and thought I had to take advantage of it before the weather turned.
Catching Teddy was a breeze and I spent some time sprucing him up. As Teddy stood to be brushed he was fixated on the neighbours property. I wanted his attention on me so I took him through some ground work - yields, stops, backing up, etc. until he was totally focussed on me. He is getting to the stage with those exercises that I don't even have to touch him to yield, just raise my hand and he moves, particularly the back end. What a bear!
I put the stock saddle on him as it has a pressure ease girth and then I tried to mount. Once again this was our issue, thankfully it was the only issue for the day (that he was doing on purpose anyway!). Each time I got him to the mounting coffee table and put my foot in the stirrup he stepped sideways away from me. It seriously took a good five minutes of walking him around then back to the block, getting angry and having to do deep breathing so I wouldn't start yelling at him and then trying again. I held it together but I bet he felt the pissed off vibe I had going. Then the last try he just did it all perfectly while looking around at me as if to say, "Well get on then". I bet he also realised that we would have been there all day if he hadn't just conceded defeat. And the scoreboard says Tania 1 - Teddy 0.
I have to marvel at this attitude of his sometimes because when I was on his back and using a loose rein he was totally into it. Ears forward, alert and happy. The loose rein has been the key to our recent riding progress as there was absolutely no head tossing. As a warm up we walked the boundaries of all the paddocks and along the dam hill. I tried to make sure he was focused by going through water, mud, up and down hills and ditches, and he was loving it. At one stage I thought he was eyeing off the cows to round up but he didn't.
Next I warmed him at a trot in the top paddock, which even after only two weeks without a ride was as quick a trot as they get and took a bit of easing into. Shortly after I decided to canter. One leg aid and he was straight into the canter and all I could think about was shortening the reins. The moment I collected them he skidded to a stop so suddenly that his head went back and I thought I was going to cop a head-butt to the face! I thought that could mean to canter on a loose rein but I didn't have the confidence for that with Teddy being such a fast moving horse, so I tried to find some middle ground. Using the length of the paddock I gathered the reins but kept my hands outstretch and took him into a canter. Being so far removed from the rocking horse canter that I've become accustom to with the horse named Dick, I wasn't as relaxed as I normally would be. At first I felt like a bloody jockey but as Teddy found his stride it didn't feel so rushed. Pulling him up wasn't going so well though as it caused him to toss his head. We cantered up and down the paddock a number of times, each time I got a bit more confident which helped me try and work out a good way to do this effortlessly that also worked for Teddy.
I'm sure the purists out there will be saying that Teddy has to do what I ask and that's that. To an extent I agree and by no means do I let him have it over me but I also feel that to work well with Teddy I have to listen to him and work with him and that is exactly what I do.
I have a lot of practise to go on Teddy at a canter as I am stiff in the legs and not able to concentrate on relaxing while trying to work out how to pull him up while maintaining a loose rein and not having my arms out to give him his head. I feel my knees lock up as I pull in his tossing head to the extend I was up and out of the saddle on more than one occasion. When I wanted him to walk after pulling him up I basically had to give him his full head as if I'd drop the reins before he would go back to a normal non-head tossing walk.
We ended our ride on a high with me calling out for Steve to come watch us LOL! I'm such a little kid! Look at me!
I'm very proud of our efforts today and I have learned a lot - mainly questions that I don't have answers to yet, but at least I know the questions now.
Well done Teddy and well done me!
No comments:
Post a Comment