Pony progress

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while.  I'm finding life difficult right now.

I can say I had two fantastic rides this past weekend.  The first was dressage.  It's been a while since we did a true dressage lesson, but Violet was fantastic.  I lengthened my stirrups longer than I have in the past, and it seems to help my balance problem some.  We worked on getting the "basketball bounce" kind of canter in the circle, and worked on getting the counterbend into the corners at the canter.  It's cool to think we can get to that now, bending at the canter.  I'm getting better with the timing of inside and outside legs.  Nice to see we are still carrying forward in progress without drilling dressage all the time.

Slowly working our way back to this.

 The second day we did jumping.  We started just cantering a cloverleaf over poles, working on carrying the "triangle" over the poles and not dropping my contact.  The triangle is a visual reference to me for the shape my hands make when they are together above her neck.  The cloverleaf also helped me with keeping my eye ahead of me, looking to the next pole instead of looking down.  Then we started jumping two long lines of about 7-8 strides.  We started with a vertical to vertical line, working on being able to recognize when the steady stride between the fences should happen.  Since a vertical will end with her landing further away from the fence, the steady stride, which for me is almost always simply sitting up straight rather than a pull, should happen sooner in a line.  We did this a few times, then moved to another oxer to oxer line where the balance stride happens a little bit later in the line, but that I also needed to keep moving forward.  This was hard for me in the beginning when the fences were smaller.  Even if I was looking to the next fence, it was so low that I was still looking down, which pitches my balance forward.  I was also told that I have gotten better with not jumping ahead with my body, but that I am still jumping ahead with my hands.  I prepare for the jump a stride or two out by putting my hands forward, which is actually still dropping Violet, putting her onto her forehand so she chips.  So the last couple of times we did the vertical to vertical line around to the oxer to oxer, I had to work with getting the balance strides where they should be, then supporting all the way to the fence and not prepping (propping) with my hands a stride out.  By this time the fences had crept up to a true BN height, and the last time we did it, it all came together and we got the forward strides in both lines!  It was a lot of fun.  Now this weekend we will go back out in the field to cross country school.

And very glad the grass is tall enough that salad can be obtained without reaching, lol

I haven't mentioned it, maybe because I wanted to see how it was all going to work out, but Marcy had her surgery a couple of weeks ago, and worked out a deal with our two girls extraordinaire for care and riding of the ponies to keep them all going while she spends the next 4 to 6 months recouping.  Yep, they say if she wants it to heal properly with full strength and range of motion that is needed for riding, it will take that long.  In the meantime, the horses will stay in full training.  They will be ridden by the girls who will be taught daily by Marcy in order to keep the horse's training on track.  I think this is a win-win for a difficult situation.  The girls are getting experience that they never would have had and are doing a fantastic job taking care of the horses, Marcy gets to see how they are going and that they are on track to where she wants them to be, and we get the benefit of the horses remaining in full training.  We as riders have been pitching in on the weekends to do care so the girls get some time off.  Of course, this means more whole weekends at the barn, as Saturday lunch, dinner, Sunday breakfast and lunch all have to be covered, but so far it's working well.

Hopefully next week I'll have some media to go with my diatribe.