The Show Part 1

Had a really fun weekend at the show. I worked in the morning on Saturday and got a free lesson in the afternoon. The lesson was really good because it challenged us both. I think when I am riding at the barn it's easy just to be happy with what I have and not push Deuce to do more. When I first got on for my lesson, Deuce was super hyper because of another horse that was going nuts in the round pen. He started hopping up and down so I decided to get off and lunge him for a while. After he raced around the round pen kicking and bucking for a while, I got on and had my regular horse back. When things like that happen I always have to remind myself that he is only 4!

After I got on the second time I started the lesson. J said to do my normal warm up but after I was trotting around for a while she was like...what are you doing? I guess I need to make sure in his warm up that I do lots of bending, lateral work, and lengthening/shortening of his stride. Once I warmed up the trot, we did leg yield at the canter from the quarter line to the wall. This exercise helps give the canter an uphill balance and teaches Deuce to push from behind. After that, I rode first level test 1 for practice.

The last thing J had me do I was pretty intimidated by at first. She put a cavalletti along the centerline of the arena and told me to do two connecting 20 meter circles and jump over the cavalletti in the middle. I did it at the trot first which was totally fine, but then she told me to do it at the canter. I had never cantered Deuce over any fence and she still wanted me to do change his bend over the cavalletti. I realized halfway through that we were really teaching him to do flying changes -- she could have told me that before we started!

Deuce landed a few times on the wrong lead or cross cantering, but eventually he got a clean flying change over the fence in both directions. He's a good baby!