Lesson Day

Gayle came up to give us lessons this morning.  I was up first since it was another scorcher and I do not deal well with the heat.  It was 85F with a slight breeze and I wore my wet vest so I did fine.  Gayle stood in the shade under a sycamore tree.  Brett was up second and planned to see how he held up with the pain and fatigue from his shingles.  Flash took care of that -- he was noticeable off at the trot so his lesson ended before I had finished taking off Winston's tack.  Jeanine was up last.  Her farrier came this morning and she wanted to ride after he was finished.  It was 94F when she finished her lesson. 

Winston and I had a great lesson.  Gayle was very pleased with how I was riding (said it was the most effective she has ever seen me!  Grinning!!)  Winston was forward, in front of my leg (responsive) and willing.  We talked about a local schooling show on Septemeber 29 and agreed that Winston can do Training Level 1.  I asked her to help with the geometry of a 20m circle at A -- I am not used to doing circles there and I have three of them in the test at that location.  She incorporated circles at A, C and E/B (each end of the arena, and the center) into the lesson. 

When we trotted on the circle she wanted Winston to bend and reach under with his hind.  As we came to the rail, she had me leg yield over a few strides before continuing on.  This got him nicely wrapped around my leg and gave us the feel of bending deeply.  He caught on quickly.  Winston is a quick study.

Passage had a prime seat.

Here's a two minute video Brett took of my trot work.  This was before we started doing leg yield on the circle. 

Canter work was the best we've ever had.  No protests, easy smooth transitions, and lots of jump.  Winston even lifted his back and gave me some bend - a relatively new development in our work. 

Of course, it wasn't all beautiful.  We did have a few moments like this (but they were the exception):

By the time Jeanine and Calibar arrived, it was noon and very hot.  I lent Jeanine my wet vest and they decided to introduce Calibar to lunging with side reins.  He knew how to lunge, but Jeanine had not used side reins before so her lesson was spent on the finer points of lunging.   Gayle was off to the side, under a tree giving Jeanine instructions.  They worked on teaching him voice commands and insisting that he be forward.  He tried, a few times, to do his own thing and that didn't work out too well for him.  Jeanine did a great job of keeping him honest and respectful.