July 2009: Andy in half-pass. Andy, my 21 year old Arabian/Saddlebred gelding, hasn’t really worked since 2010 and he is now in the program to get in shape. I showed him at Third Level in 2009 & 2010 and I have trained him myself. During one of our first conditioning sessions of this year, 20 minutes of walking in the ring, I picked up the reins and plugged into my old friend to play with dressage.
Andy has long had the habit of jigging away in trot when I shorten my reins. Every ride, every lesson has meaning if you look for it. In my recent lessons with Sapphire, she often cantered with me during easy trot warm-up work. Oz assigned me with positioning her body more sideways on the track, at least in shoulder-in, more like leg yielding, to angle her body so that she would concentrate and slow down. The horse takes care not to stumble while crossing its legs.
If I had gotten on Andy that day ‘cold’, after a long time off for both of us, I might have missed the lesson of asking him to angle his body and return to walk. It would not be right to punish the eager horse for going forward; the rider must think it through and think ahead. Andy has always given me a great feeling in his lateral work, and that day we played with angles and changes of direction and bend, just walking. I applied Sapphire’s lesson and had a delightful conversation with my oldest friend in the language of dressage.
Andy has long had the habit of jigging away in trot when I shorten my reins. Every ride, every lesson has meaning if you look for it. In my recent lessons with Sapphire, she often cantered with me during easy trot warm-up work. Oz assigned me with positioning her body more sideways on the track, at least in shoulder-in, more like leg yielding, to angle her body so that she would concentrate and slow down. The horse takes care not to stumble while crossing its legs.
If I had gotten on Andy that day ‘cold’, after a long time off for both of us, I might have missed the lesson of asking him to angle his body and return to walk. It would not be right to punish the eager horse for going forward; the rider must think it through and think ahead. Andy has always given me a great feeling in his lateral work, and that day we played with angles and changes of direction and bend, just walking. I applied Sapphire’s lesson and had a delightful conversation with my oldest friend in the language of dressage.
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