Today was a good day! After my jump lesson with Lyric I loaded Funny up and we headed to Ashland. We met up with Linda and Roy and she gave us some pointers to help improve our test for the three day.
We warmed up and were planning to run through the test. But before we got there, Linda gave me some pointers on geometry. She was telling me that at Novice, it was essentially a training level test, so ride my corners as such.. not as a grand prix corner! Use my quarter lines to help. So, as I come up on the corner line, I start my turn and then head back to the rail. This makes the corner smooth and not abrupt. The name of the game at training level is smoothness. We talked about where I was supposed to hit the circle on my 20 meter circles. She printed me out a map and reminded me that F, M, H and K are 6 meters from the end of the arena. Between E and S is 12 meters. So, when I am turning from the rail at B and going across the diagonal, don't ride it so square. Ride it from the rail to the quarter line, then go straight from quarter line to quarter line and then back to the longside rail. And then when I do the two twenty meter circles at X, I need to aim to hit my first "mark" on the arc 2 meter before S, and then the next "mark" should be 4 meter in from that line of H and M... and then the third "mark" is 2 meters before R. Okay... Good to know! And definitely helpful to ride the quarter line corners. We practiced that a bit and it got better. But she mentioned that I needed to slow Funny down. Yeah... ha! I know! But.. I was able to get her slower. She kept mentioned "not with your hands.. half halt softly and use your body". Yay! You're speaking my language Linda. Then she mentioned that Funny wasn't consistent. She had me ride her inside leg to outside rein, but then had me lift and slightly wiggle the inside rein to keep her flexed and soft to the inside. And it worked, but only when I also added some outside rein wiggles. And by wiggles, I mean very subtly. She also told me that in my transitions, Funny needed to stay soft, so ride an "almost leg yield" into and out of my transitions. Okay... will do.
So then I ran through the test. It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible. There were certainly lots of areas I could have done better and tweaked things, but overall, it wasn't terrible. Certainly not the winning test though. Linda gave me a few more pointers and then we decided to go through it piece by piece.
She asked if I knew why I came down centerline like I did. I said "Yes... but I'm trying to decide which way is best... like if I circle to the right because we're on the right bend and then tracking right is that best, or is it best to start on a left bend because she drifts right and then I'm counteracting it". So she told me to start on a right bend since I'm tracking right and instead of coming inside the letter and leg yielding to centerline... come down straight onto centerline with "A" just to my right. Honestly, I expected it to go poorly because I thought that I was going to have to halfpass to centerline then, instead of being able to leg yield to it. But it worked! I actually ended up on centerline and stayed straight vs being off centerline. I think I was leg yielding too much and overshooting centerline. Okay... we did it two or three times and it was definitely better her way. Noted! Then she also said that because I knew Funny was fussy in the halt... halt, very calmly drop my hand and nod my head and get out of the halt. Don't create a dramatic halt with a lot of body movement that will throw Funny off balance and encourage her to move. And then once she halts, salute quick and get out. And... she's got a point. Funny halts pretty square but she does not hold it. She's fidgety. And if I try to insist she stays halted, it gets worse. So, while I may get deducted for not being "immobile" long enough.. technically it doesn't say "halt and hold for 3 seconds" or what not. So I'll probably score better for not holding it very long than if she's wiggling all around. Noted! Also, she said that the first halt is allowed to have walk steps but the final halt isn't. So pay attention to that. So we practiced the initial halt a bit too and it's definitely better if I'm quick about it. But also.. let go of her face once we halt. If I stay in her face, she gets fussy. So at the entry halt and salute... come in with A to my right, half halt into the walk for 2-3 solid walk steps, then halt, soften on her mouth, then quickly and quietly salute, and trot off!
So then we practiced the turn Right at B and then do a 20 meter circle at X, then a left handed 20 meter circle at X and then turn right at E. We practiced my markers for the circles and keeping her calm and quiet. Leg yield her out into the outside rein. And when I came around the corner, ride the quarter lines. Then as we get to the part of the figure 8 where I change direction... don't just surprise her. Forewarn her. As I start on the last bit of that circle, start changing my leg pressure on the new inside leg, step into the right stirrup instead of the left, and discreetly wiggle the reins (to keep her head soft and down and let her know something is coming) and then we're prepared for the new direction. And it definitely made it smooth vs an abrupt change with her head flinging up. Ahhh, nice!
Then we worked on the trot, walk, trot part across X. And man, that is hard. It's very similar to the figure 8 as far as prepare her! As we were trotting around Linda suddenly yelled "And Halt NOW". Oh my gosh.. rude. I had to slam on the breaks. She asked if I was prepared to halt and I said no. And she said "it felt rude, right? That's what you're doing to your horse with the walk transitions". Oh. Oooooooh. Dang. But she's right. So... sit the trot.. half halt and get a nice slow trot before so I'm prepared. Then try to give her some sort of indicator that something is coming. Which.. ha! I've heard that before. It's just hard to find a cue because I feel like a triple little half halt wiggle would be great, but I end up doing that almost the whole ride as an actual half halt. So, maybe if I close my thighs? And exhale..... But when i prepared earlier, it definitely got better. And I also found it got better if I rode it almost like a figure 8 in the sense that I thought about changing my bend the same way.. just stretching out the straight line for the 4 steps of walk. So yay! That is definitely getting better at times.
We also worked on the stretchy trot. And we were laughing because her trot, walk, trot and her stretchy trot are both better on the other rein. Too bad I can't mirror image my test! She said to play with the stretchy trot and find a way to keep her round and bent and her head down and stretching. Whether is wiggling the inside rein... wiggling the outside rein (wiggle is the wrong word because I'm not just seesawing her down... it's a subtle "hey listen" wiggle).... lifting my inside hand to encourage neck flexion... or whatever seems to work. But I'll have to play with that on my own. I do think sitting back and really slowing my post helps, but... I can't sit too far back because then I start driving. But we'll play with it. We had some really lovely moments of it, but never were able to get an entire full circle.
After that we decided to go to the lake for a sip of water because she had been working hard and it was getting really hot! I'll try to do one more lesson with her in a week or two to help work on some of the other parts. But today gave me a lot to think about and practice on.
And... I'm really proud of Funny because even though we cantered, she didn't fully escalate. She got a little quicker but she came down quite nicely. And she was trying really hard to be good today. And she was quite good! So yay!!!
We had a nice walk to the lake and she didn't drink, but she finally pawed a little. And then suddenly, she started to go down. Nope!! Not in the saddle ma'am. Luckily I kept her from going down. I'm sorry girl.. I'm sorry! Then we hacked back. Sharon had arrived at that point, so I told Linda that I had told Sharon I would ride with her and invited her to join us. But she had hacked before I got there so she was done. I was too, honestly. I was so hot and thirsty. But I wanted to ride with Sharon so we did a quick ride. We hacked to Raccoon Loop and then went up Five Terraces, so we got some hill work in. Then we went up the backside up behind the show jump arena. So it was a good ride! Minus all the spider webs we went through! At one point Funny had a big joro spider hanging off her ear!
Good pony though! I'm so proud!! And thinking we might actually have a chance of doing decently in dressage. Linda was sweet and said she was a lovely mover, but we just needed to get some things down pat.
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