Last night I had a fantastic lesson! Rico gave me the best pirouettes of his life and I felt so coordinated within them, able to move him out one stride if he got sticky and then continue around. We also had some great walk pirouettes and pretty good canter-halt transitions.
Or... it could have been the alcohol. It was Tracey's birthday on Monday so all the ladies came out right before my lesson and gave her a card, presents, little cakes, and we all had some champagne.
After a half a glass of champagne, I got on Rico and warmed up. He felt pretty good, especially considering that for the last two days, we've been taking it very easy. Those two easy days seemed to have done wonders for how coordinated I felt in the left lead canter, something I've been struggling with recently. Phew, maybe Prix St George isn't the dumbest idea I've ever had.
We started with the walk canter transitions and some canter walk transitions as well. Rico stayed, for the most part, nicely uphill into the canter, but I struggled with the quality of the downward transition. It goes back to my previous training where simply doing the movement was enough. See, no matter what I do, Rico will walk from the canter. He's just that lazy. I could drop the reins and leap off of him and he'd do a walk transition. It isn't a quality transition in the least. However when you're racing through the levels like I was, simply doing it was enough, we'd get a solid 7 on our simple changes at second level so I didn't care.
Once as I figured out how to properly prepare for a canter walk transitions, we worked on the pirouettes. Tracey had me start with haunches-in on the circle without letting him fall over his shoulder or back off in the forward energy. Almost immediately afterward, she sent us down the longside to the other end of the arena to ride the pirouette pattern. Yikes! My first pirouette to the right was horrendous. I came in completely crooked, leaned to the right, and he almost trotted. Tracey had me ride out of that one. The next one was PERFECT! Except that he was so balanced upon leaving that he did his change in the corner rather than at C. The one that followed was perfect AND he waited in the change so we went to the left.
I can now understand what Tracey means by saying that my left pirouette is biomechanically not as good as the right. Sure I can make it smaller than the right, but I sacrifice quality of the canter. So I rode it a tiny bit bigger so that I could have more activity which worked quite well. Whether or not I'll get that on Sunday, I'm not sure.
We then worked on a few centerlines. I think I'm going to ride the centerline on the right lead, although my project this week is to experiment with both leads. The first centerline made me think that Rico had also had some champagne. We had just come off the pirouettes so he was a bit distracted. After a few drunken wobbles, we had some decent halts from the canter. Tracey noted that I really just need to prepare the right amount of strides. Too many strides and he goes crooked, too little strides and he falls on his face.
We ended with some walk pirouettes, which I had made a spectacle of earlier in the day. I just really need to remember to not come in horrible. If I come in even straight, the inside hind leg steps away from his body and it becomes very large. The left one was okay, but the right one was terrible! Once as I got the right feeling, it became much better and we ended.
I'm nervous for Sunday, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the last three lessons with Tracey have made me feel a thousand times more confident for riding this test.
Tracey told me I just had to do it, get the first one over with and then my anxiety will be better for the shows in October and November. Next year is the time for chasing scores and qualifying for championships. This year was about making an FEI horse, and he's SO CLOSE!
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| His first day out of what I thought was a permanent retirement |
I received ride times last night- I ride at 11:40am, which is perfect. My client who is coming with me rides at 9:30 and at 10:00, so it gives Rico plenty of time in his stall there to hang out and eat some food. I'll start braiding just after her second test and get on at 11:15. I'm still figuring out what to do for our warm up, but I have a feeling that half a mimosa may be in order!! They don't drug test riders, right?
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