Its two weeks since I committed to loose weight for the sake of the poor horse I ride. I have been mainly on Slimfast and lost 4 lbs. I am a bit disappointed, but let’s face it its going in the right direction. And going in the right direction is very important especially when on horse back. I had a wonderfully exhilarating lesson last Thursday. Talk about patting your head and rubbing your tummy. I was trying, for the first time, simple changes, change of rein whilst in canter back to trot for the change and then straight into canter.
I was doing a figure 8 changing at X, or there abouts.
Well that was the plan anyway, there were so many things to remember, leg to get the bend, flex inside rein, one way then the other, half halt, down to trot rise momentarily flex the other way etc etc and away in canter again. What I tended to forget was to look where I was going. We are told so many times , think it and the horse will know, look and your body weight will follow and the horse will be right there where you want him to be.
A few times I was so full of what I needed to do I forgot where I was going and made it hard for myself and Oscar by turning too sharply and too quickly, at one time I was so caught up with my flexing I forgot to go forward into Trot and we did a flying change, of sorts together. That’s changing the rein without coming out of canter and the horse changes their lead leg on the go,(I think) correct me if I have that skewed. Hayley said she didn’t know Oscar could do that. I didn’t know we could do it either. It wasn’t pretty though very bumpy
.
So Yesterday, we didn’t rush back into this exercise we concentrated on transitions up and down trying to sit quietly and back and keep my blooming hands down especially when I come down into trot! Oscar’s poor mouth! I do try to get it right I really do. Also trot to canter , up ‘til now I have been going straight from walk into canter, so its good to practice that.
But the biggest lesson of all was to keep in mind where you want to be set your sights on your goal and head for it. So Me and Oscar can look forward or sideways or wherever but we are going to know where we are going and I am going to carry on loosing weight, little by little in the right direction.
Alison
6 comments:
Great blog, great video. How lucky you are to have such a nice horse to learn from. That's quite a school you go to :)
Thanks for reading Lorraine, yes Oscar is a dream and the school well going there is like a little visit to heaven.
Oscar seems like a great horse! I am trying to loose weight for my riding, too. So hard! But I will get there. Keep up the great work!
Hi Allison thank you so much for reading and your comments went swimming today to try and burn some extra calories. Lets keep in touch and support each others efforts to be smaller people ha.
Oscar is lovely my instructor is so good at finding good horses for us Novices. I love your blog BTW and Shyloh is gorgeous.
You are indeed going in the right direction. I wish I had lost some weight...but as I have no Oscar I don't really have any incentive...
Thanks MUMUGB Oscar is my motivation when the time is right I am guessing you will find your own. Its got to be important to you, having said that its going really slowly.
Alison
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