Saturday, August 11, 2007

Managed to get a few necessary things accomplished before rushing off for my lesson. I got there with enough time to let the dogs run which turned out to be a mistake. With last nights storm there was ever so lovely mud. Wyatt had four black paws. Pixie put two paws in and turned off (thank goodness her rough coat makes it a little harder to get mud out).

I learned that this will be my last ride on Matte. She will now be doing third and fourth level work which means as bad as I am at giving canter cues she would be doing fly lead changes with every steps (aka tempi changes). I will be riding Sassey next time. I need to get a picture of Matte. She is very wonderful. We had an excellent lesson. I learned more about getting a horse on the bit by working them to it from behind. C had me using my outside leg more forward to get her to turn with my inside rein directing the turn. My right leg works better than my left and I found I needed to turn my upper body more for my left leg to be where it needed to be. I need to work on my core strength to help with half halts and to be where I need to be for the horse to be balanced. I thank Matte tremdously for teaching me so well. When everything it correct it happens. I have sooo many things to think about. It is incredible. Josie will be very happy with me. I feel I am not doing too badly for only riding once every other week. I CANNOT wait for her to finish her training.

It was nice to see Matte looking after me while she was in the cross ties. We were starting to bond a bit :)

Best intentions - I brought my bike a long but after eating lunch and sitting in the heat decided not to go.