Ride the Cow

Another fun dressage lesson with Lexi today. I'll tell you, trotting 10m circles is hard work, but this work is paying off.

I didn't realize how little I've been asking Lex to hold the contact. She gets SUPER evasive and has about a million tricks up her sleeve (shoulders bulging out, falling in, speeding up, head up, rooting, spontaneous leg yield) that make her tricky, but when she gets it, she's got a hack-winning trot. Mary's idea is that we just have to ride this fussy stuff out. It's not fun exactly, but it's educational.

Sometimes I feel like we're making breakthroughs. Today she had some moments of great connection to the outside rein and lifting her withers. We found ourselves with a great balanced circle that almost felt like a rollback, which meant she was using the outside rein and stepping under.

Mary's advice overall was to just keep doing what we're doing and she'll figure it out. She was a little bit of a cow at one point, but she got over it. She's ready for this pressure, and I just have to make myself do it. Sometime in the next couple days, though, I'll probably just give her a hack day or something so she doesn't get too wound up.

As Mary said the other day, riding green horses isn't all kissing, clucking, and carrots!