Today I had a lunge lesson with my friend G. She has ridden english for most of her riding career and does know proper equitation and was happy to torture me on the line. Finding an english rider up here is fair and few between, and one who can teach is miraculous, so I am extremely happy to have found G! During the lesson we talked about what my showing goals were going to be this year, and I mentioned the two horse trials I'd like to get to, one at the end of July, one at the end of August. Just looking at starter, so it wouldn't be that big for the jumping, just worried about the experience. She replied "Oh, it won't be that difficult! Just keep working, haul into the arena to work on stadium and you'll be fine". Not exactly in those words, but that's what I took from it which was very comforting. We have plenty of time to work up to getting to the starter level fitness wise, and in the dressage ring.
When we started heading home on the trails, Koda was really striding out, so I started doing some shortening, lengthening, stretching, and pushing from the hind through the back (lifted!) walk work. We played a game where every time we were going downhill, we would "sneak". I found it really helped him balance himself instead of just throwing himself down the hill, plus we slowed down so that the others would catch up to us. It was very cool to really feel that lift through the back, and him coming round, even with the slightly too wide saddle on him. I've heard from the seller, and the Harry Dabbs should be on it's way tomorrow via Greyhound!
Since we didn't have the camera for the lunge, here's some video from our trail yesterday. Youtube was kind enough to fix my wobbly video-taping.
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