5th lesson in the rain!

Today was my fifth lesson. I brought my bridle, stirrups with leathers and a few bits. I brought the stirrups to try on her leather dressage saddle. I really wanted to like this saddle. It is an 18" Stubben dressage saddle. I tried it out, with my stirrups but it was just too big. In the trot I kept hitting the front of the saddle when I was posting. I could not find a place for my leg. When it felt comfortable my leg was off the padding and near the middle of the flap. I did all our warm up in it but even Andrew pulled me aside to switch saddles as he could tell it was not going to work out.

When we arrived at the ranch it started drizzling and soon became a good little downpour at times. I was riding with E in this lesson, my first simi-private. We both had our horses tacked and ready to go when the rain started coming down hard. N almost canceled the lesson but I said since we were ready we might as well walk around and stretch. By the end of the lesson the rain had stopped.

I was happy to see that Duke was not to interested in his pony friend. He did want to catch up if we got directly behind the pony but he did paid good attention to me as well. N also mentioned Duke is more forward when the weather is fresher.

After the saddle switch I joined E in the arena to practice dressage tests. E and I both have memorized USDF Intro test A so we began with that.

I was to follow E in the dressage test but it did not work out well. E walked in then halted rather than trot in to halt. N does not like test A and said it was boring to walk so much. I tried to follow E but pony strides vs Duke strides were hard to level out.

This is the first lesson were I felt the slightest bit annoyed. We switched to test B which I do not know. When E went off course so did I as I had no idea the movements for test B nor were they explained.

We ended well enough. Our trot is slightly more consistent, our bending needs a lot of work. I do not expect that to improve anytime soon as I am only riding once a week and Duke is ridden twice a week. Our transitions are much better I think. At least they feel better and the accuracy seems to be improving as well. I am hoping to start helping N out around the ranch in exchange for more lessons. I also hope to spend time and work with Duke more while I am there as well. I would like to get him going in some long lines and over poles to work on getting him stronger so he does not sit on his forehand so much. Hopefully I will be able to start all that soon, I am just waiting for the Jeep to be fixed. Soon though, soon.

 

 

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