2024 - Week of Sept 1
This week is building up to a two week vacation so it is a busy time as I would like to get everyone's lessons in before I leave, and I am taking extra lessons.
Sunday and Monday the barn provided four lessons each day. I don't remember details of my daily rides but I had them.
Tuesday there was one longe line lesson. I don't remember details of my daily rides but I had them.
Wednesday a longe lesson, leadline longe lesson, and Cutie had a jump lesson too. I received three lessons, the big takeaway that I remember now was that I move too much in the half pass and need to figure that out.
Thursday had two leadline lessons, one private and one group, longe lesson, and two riding lessons. I also traveled to give two lessons. My daily ride was very brief ST walk work with my two horses.
Friday no lessons were given but I received three lessons, and I videoed almost five Straightness Training scripts with Jackie and Firefly. I only did half the Liberty 1 script with Jackie and didn't worry about the video. Later I realized that I only had to film Firefly's videos but oh well.
Jackie's lesson was a canter focus. She had an especially lovely left counter canter and it's funny how her it used to be her worst lead and now it's her best.
Firefly's lesson I focused on staying plugged in. Our pattern is for him to give up and I move, but he needs to drive into my seat and if I feel empty contact then it's a sign to drive him forward. We had some of our best trot laterals, especially half pass, with this new understanding.
Cutie's lesson was a bit of a celebration as she is just amazing. She has surpassed any expectation we had of her riding education. Last December I started to ride her only to school her for lesson kids and to perhaps help keep her in shape, but she is schooling Second Level and we ended today with a bubbly floaty canter to walk transition. In December it was WORK to trot her four circles and I thought I'd never canter her. She would fight halts, back up across the arena, brace constantly, rush in the canter...and now she's just lovely and calm and hard working. She puts her all into her movement. During the ride I adjusted my stirrup and she stopped suddenly - it made me realize how her sensitivity has taught me so much.
Saturday we had a mini-clinic with SunRidge Sport Horses. The arena was dusty so we moved to the sunny pasture. Between the different space, the neighbor's herding dog running the fence line next to the horses, the families spectating, and some students showing up early, it was like a busy show environment. There were a few lessons after the clinic and most of the Unmounted Horsemanship Group was observing the clinic and hand grazing Jackie, whom I rode briefly at the start of the clinic and was very happy about her calm mental state.
Sunday our Unmounted Horsemanship Group cleaned up the jump equipment and brought in the temporary electric fencing from the sunny pasture. With the dry past few weeks the grass really isn't growing much at all so I'm starting to keep horses off pastures overnight. There were a few lessons and then I rode Jackie and Firefly. It was a quick and steady Second-1 inspired ride with Jackie. Firefly's ride was the highlight as he did some beautiful transitions trot-halt-trot and trot-canter-trot-canter. I asked for one walk-canter each direction and they were the most calm and prompt ever!
This weekend I read Julie Ulrich's "Packing My Bags" and "Straightening the Crooked Horse" by Gabriele Rachen-Schoneich and Klaus Schoneich. Julie's book I read in one sitting and stayed up late. I couldn't put it down. It was a wonderful mix of stories and theory. I am inspired to teach students an SRS-inspired Quadrille ride! And keep jumping and maybe go back to hunting. The Straightening book was a fantastic overview of principles that I've already learned and applied in ST but much more focused on physical straightening and using daily trot longeing as treatment for acute crookedness. I think 3 weeks of it as a starting fix is a little ambitious but the authors have trained hundreds, or they claim over 4,000, horses and I have definitely not. It's very easy to read about doing X with a horse in a book and actually going out and achieving it is something else. ;)
Themes this week:
-Continue use of the blue stretchy band as "rider side reins". I believe that it has been more helpful to double it and have it hook just once around the elbows rather than wrap around the core.
-First independent canter strides for a student!
-Contact and self-carriage before a halt is far more humane than loose "light" reins and then having the horse brace in the halt as it catches "contact" roughly. This is also true for transitions.
-The horses are all in wonderful shape from summer riding and work in the heat.
