Friday 10 August 2012

Getting the Hang of it

I think I have found a slight break through moment.  I’ve been riding Koda like a truely green horse, and so I ride him very defensively.  Tonight I just got down to it and rode him how I used to ride; forward, into the bridle, with the expectation of obedience and a good work ethic.  Presto – Koda worked wonderfully tonight.
 

Here is my crazy super high energy half-arab!

We did some suppling exercises just to wake him up and get that long body of his flexing around my legs through corners and circles.  Once he was all nice and supple, we worked on a 20m circle to help with our canter transitions.  We’re still working on our communication, me findng his ‘buttons’ and him figuring out what I’m asking for.  His canter has improved tremendously, becoming really balanced, especially when (surprise surprise) his rider is balanced too!      


This is our back field set up as a part jumping arena, part driving arena, part trail obstacle course. 

After our canter work we did some jumping work.  I was only going to do our stadium fences, but the brush jump was too much of a draw, couldn’t help myself J  It was kind of funny, I was nervous to jump him over our small jumps!  I’ve shown up to 2’6” and schooled 2’9” but here I was, my heart thundering (out of nerves or excitement?!) because I was jumping a 2’ vertical.  The BO (who graciously agreed to video us) thought that it may be baggage from Celtic and our experience we had at the past horse trial, me expecting him to refuse.  While riding, Koda does like to go a touch speedy after a fence, so am possibly going to look into getting a little heavier bit with a touch more breaks.

Here are some video of us tonight.  Be gentle with my form!  I need to find my release again, sorry boy!







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