Lesson Review | 9/06/20

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тяι¢ку тяαηѕιтισηѕ

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Got photos :satisfied:

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Disclaimerrr: Lovestory is a small pony and the angles aren't the best but I assure you that I'm not exceeding the limit she can carry. Horses can still comfortable carry 20-25% of their body weight and I'm not ing that limit. It looks looks a little out of proportion because I'm tall haha, but I'm not overweight or anything :)

Ah, it feels good to be back writing the weekly lesson reviews again! I didn't write up last week's lesson as they do take a lot of time and I was quite busy, however, I'm hoping to keep up with them from now on. So I arrived at around 3:20pm and the lesson starts at 3:30pm. No one else had arrived yet so my trainer asked if I was willing to clean a pen while I waited for the others to arrive. I agreed of course and got to work. I don't mind helping her out at all, one less pen for her to clean. Once I finished that pen, everyone else arrived so I was allowed to catch my pony for the lesson who was, of course, the queen Lovestory. Woody was in the same area as her and walked away from me when I approached, but I was like "I'm not here for you, no need to run :joy: " I got Lovestory and then led her out, tacked up and went into the arena.

I spent some time I walk, feeling her out and what not. I know her pretty well by now, but that's not an excuse to just jump into trot. I still need to assess if she's nervous or anything. I then yeet into trot and warm her up. No problems there. After I trot around I bit then ask her to come under and use those hindquarters. Lovestory is good to come under, but you still have to work for it. If don't push her forwards or have no , she ain't gonna come under.

I do small circles and sitting trot as well as we go on because sometimes she'll just ignore me when I just trot around and post. So I do different things to keep her attention and get her brain engaged so that she'll listen to me. Lovestory wasn't falling out through the shoulders much today and she was pretty responsive to leg which was good. The only thing is sometimes she'd do is pop her head out as we go along, but that's an easy fix. Sometimes I can fix it by doing some small circles or by halting and then asking. Or just by simply powering forwards. A few different ways I can get her under.

Once I'm happy with how the trot is, I then change direction. She's a little worse going left and likes to fall out through the outside shoulder. It can also be because sometimes my outside hand is lazy and won't work while my left hand becomes dominant. That is a great way for her to slip out through that shoulder. That's something I have to think about. My trainer then tells me I can work on my trot to canter transitions. Easy right? Uhm, not with this girl :sweat_smile: .

Lovestory has always been a really hard horse to canter. This is because of multiple reasons. She doesn't want to power from behind so it's hard for her to do a good transition and keep going, the other lesson kids let her get away with not cantering, and she doesn't want to use the right muscles so she barely has any hindquarter muscles to power forwards. It brings out all my faults when I ask to canter her. I tend to lean slightly forward, put my hands forward and therefore losing my . I also don't use much leg and seat when she starts cantering so she breaks. I also can forget to keep my outside leg on and she slips through that shoulder. And I occasionally lean in. Yep, this girl really shows my faults lmao, but that's okay. Lessons are there to challenge you and fix your faults.

I sit the trot and ask Love to canter. The first time she went into it well, but barely held it for long. The next one was a great transition and she held it for longer. Then she started to anticipate I was now going to ask for canter and became quite tense and wouldn't put her head under for me. I continued to sit the trot and wait for the right moment. I asked and then leant forwards slightly and meant I lost my and Lovestory could throw her head up and hollow through the back. She also fast trotted a few steps with that hollow back before cantering which is just ewww. Not good. My outside leg and rein were also struggling to activate which allowed to get through the outside shoulder.

However, I tried again. I knew what I needed to do and focused on those things. I sat back, kept my hands down and steady, activated my outside gear, waited for her to settle down and then asked. Lovestory popped straight into it perfectly and held it for maybe two or three strides before breaking. The transition was great, but in the midst of all that, I forgot to power on with seat and legs! That resulted in her breaking. Oh well, it was a good try. I continued to practice transitions for a bit, but didn't get a good one like that again.

Before I knew it, other riders started to arrive for their lesson so I had to cool Lovestory down. My trainer did let me go about 20mins overtime so that was nice of her. I walked her on a loose rein before dismounting and leading her out of the arena. I then untacked and put her in the paddock with her friends. I talked a bit with my trainer after and she did say that Lovestory was really hard to canter so it's not just me :joy: . There was also this new horse called Honda who I may be able to ride soon :eyes: :eyes: . And maybe this other guy called Raf. But most likely Honda. I'm not sure if it'll be next lesson but stay tuned :eyes: . I mean, I love my girl Lovestory but I new horse is too irresistible to turn down.

Okay, that's it for this week's lesson review! I hope you enjoyed reading it. It was a fun but tough one. My thighs were burning and I had a stitch at the end lmaoo. I probably need to get fitter haha. I think it was a very good lesson overall. As always, check out my Wiki Entry of lesson reviews! There is tons over there lol.

#LessonReview

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