Lessons 20 & 21

Today should have been lesson 22, but since it was about 35 degrees this morning and super windy, Kim and I decided neither of us wanted to be out in the weather today, so we are hopefully rescheduling for tomorrow (weather and health pending).

The last two weeks with Simon I have continued to carry a crop (never actually touching him with it), and it sure has made our warmups more productive! Simon actually moves faster than a snails pace at the trot and he picks up the canter much more easily. He's just so relaxed around me that otherwise he just sighs and exerts as little energy as he possibly can. :)

However, in agreement with my suspicions about him being trained to get his leads over fences using a crop, our leads have been totally messed up on course the last two weeks. I guess either I have stopped whatever automatic signal I was giving him to get the correct lead (it was not a conscious request) while carrying the crop, or he just is so worried about it that he is not focused on the course as much. We'll work that out, I'm sure. I'll just have to consciously ask in a way that he understands (turning his head does not seem to do it - it is more of using my inside leg ahead of the girth, rather than using my outside leg behind the girth - opposite of what I was taught back in the day.)

But we did an "equitation" - type course and jumped the first fence in a line of two, but then turned to go over a fence on the diagonal. It took a few times and Simon had it down pat, so when we actually wanted to do both fences in that line, Simon started to turn left to the diagonal like "what the heck?" We also have been practicing over an "in and out" - uhm, for those of you who are like "is that a kind of bad sex or what?" no, it actually is referring to two fences in a row with only one stride in between them. Normally there are 5-7 strides between the fences, but the in and out requires more balance on the rider's part, and for Simon, it asks him to lengthen his normally shorter stride. And that lead us to a few jumps on course where Simon took off pretty far away from a fence. He has done that before with me, but it has been several months since he has taken off so far away. He usually takes off pretty close rather than far away (or maybe that is my riding style - I can be a bit of a cautious rider at times when I don't see the perfect spot). Also, when we're riding with a crop, his stride is longer, and I can "see" the takeoff spots more easily. But I guess Simon also takes that as his cue to jump a little more aggressively. I did get left behind, but only slightly. I am pretty good at realizing, "Oh, **** he's taking off" and staying almost with him in the air. Kim said she could see it coming and knew what he was going to do. I'll be more prepared tomorrow!