Can't believe I have not blogged since last Wed! So, back up to last Thursday. L and I went alone to the barn - it was fairly nice out, not raining, and in the 50's. We decided to ride in the outdoor jumping arena for a change of pace. Riva was much better than she was out there on Tues. She was listening and not racing around with her head too high. She was fairly distracted by a certain gelding that she is in love with. He was being worked in the outdoor dressage arena, next to us. Was nice working in the jumping arena with L and Henny - much easier to stay out of each others way and lots of jumps to circle around, change direction, etc.
We just worked on trot mainly - was able to get her speed up on the long sides and collected on the shorter end. We probably could have worked some canter - but decided to wait till our next time outside. I also worked on her trot, walk, halt transitions. Went the entire arena, on both reins, with lots of t/w/h transitions. Riva did really well at this.
Did not go out Friday night - took the night off and went to see Gretchen Wilson in concert. Had a nice surprise and was able to go backstage to meet Gretchen, get my pic taken with her, and get her autograph. Awesome!
Sat Night - had planned to go out and ride, but started snowing in the afternoon and just could not get motivated - blah...
Lesson day Sunday! Was really excited and looking forward to it. Riva was a mud ball - could not even see the white on her legs when we got there. The horses were just being let in when we arrived. I let Riva eat some of her dinner then pulled her out to lunge before L started her lesson. Riva was great on the lunge - lots of energy - just one kinda naughty canter transition - head tossing, pulling, nothing too terrible. She wanted to canter, so worked on more transitions than normal and for longer stretches. Cleaned her up some and put her back to eat more while L had her lesson.
Our turn! S watched her walk and trot - she is really pleased with how Riva is going and loves her trot. S put some ground poles down and we worked on those on a circle - started with one and worked up to three. Riva really likes to work ground poles and did well. I really felt it helped with her right bend to work the trot poles on a circle. S encouraged me to work on this the next two weeks - not every ride - but she said this will start getting Riva up in her trot.
We then went to canter. S liked her transitions, and that Riva is going into them when asked. We easily got 1/2 arena without breaking out of canter. Another boarding was lounging her horse on one end our entire lesson - a horse that Riva does not like. When S told me to go full arena at canter, I yelled to the boarder that we were coming her way, but she is bad about keeping her horse out of the way. As we got near the other horse, Riva tried to kick out at the horse and ended up changing leads in mid-stride, I was not sure what happened and thought she was getting set to buck. So next time by, we made it thru the first corner by the lounging horse, but at the second corner, Riva tried to bite him in the butt and run into him. I hollered at her for that. Tried one last time to make it past the lounging horse - success! I was very determined, blocked her with my inside leg and rein and pushed her through with much yelling! It worked though :-)
S told me to keep working on canter - more she does it, the better she'll get. And to also work on trot poles. Next lesson she said we will also look at what shows L and I plan to go to and try and coordinate with shows she will be attending. So looking forward to the first show - S said we will be fine at Intro by mid-April.
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