We had two extra students in the group today, making up for lessons they had missed, and as a result there was 10 of us. That’s the max allowed in a group, and it does get a little crowded in the arena. However, it also means a good selection of horses available. Additionally, our instructor didn’t quite feel like assigning the horses today, so she just listed the horses we would be using, and asked who wanted which horse. In some cases, two or three people wanted the same horse, but oddly enough I was the only one who wanted Murphy. I do love it when I take a liking to a less than popular horse. ;)
Continuing on from last week, I tried to work a lot with establishing that I was the leader even while tacking Murphy up, and it may have worked even a little better this time around. He was perfectly happy to defer to me while I was on his left side, and a little less grumpy than last time about his right side. We’re definitely making progress. While I was warming up the bit, and chatting with some of the others, Malupin got loose. The girl who was going to ride him forgot to slide the halter down around his neck while bridling, and he quickly took advantage of her by turning around and walking out of his stall, dragging her behind with just the reins around his neck. I surprised myself (must be those new-found leadership skills ;P) by acting decisively and taking a firm grip across his nose and leading him back to his stall. He, in turn, surprised me by meekly following along, even though he could easily have resisted.
After mounting up (Murphy definitely doesn’t try to move around with me any longer), I tried to get myself into a good seat from the start by sitting far forward and first raising up my knees in front of me (to help me find a deep seat, right on my seatbones, and to straighten out my back) and then letting my legs sink back down in the right position (while trying to keep my back unchanged), with my knees down (but still bent enough to bring the lower leg back somewhat), my toes up (thinking heel down causes tension) and my legs softly fitted to the horse’s sides. I still can’t quite find the right feeling in regards to keeping the insides of my legs soft and using the outsides for pressure, but it did feel like I was clenching less and like I managed to avoid pulling my leg up when using leg aids.
The exercise was a continuation of the work from previous weeks, namely turns on the hindquarters. Initially, Murphy tried to play stubborn lesson pony by refusing to turn across the arena without another horse in front of him, and I had to use my whip twice to get him to stop balking. As a result, he ended up quite charged, and with a pony in front of him to hunt down, the rising trot didn’t work as well as I would have liked. Once we moved to a sitting trot, however, it felt like I got quite a bit of hindleg action, even if he was still a little too rushed to come forward and down with his head. But I could feel some movement from his hindquarters and back, certainly.
After a while, we changed the exercise slightly, to consist of a half-turn in from the track at the middle of the short-end of the arena, which essentially meant we’d cut a straight line across two of the corners. As before, the turn was supposed to be on the hind-quarters, with the horse kept as straight as possible, and once we had found our line we were supposed to canter. I knew this wouldn’t be easy, since Murphy tends to want to canter by trotting fast and ‘falling’ into canter, but I was determined to try to keep a deep, steady seat.
The first time, all I got was a fast trot, but I resisted the urge to start rocking him forward to get a canter. The instructor saw this, and told me to keep riding like that. So, I kept at it, and after a few attempts, I did get him to canter. Not well, by any means, but he was starting to get a little charged up by the exercise, so I tried to capitalize on this by collecting him more in preparation for the turn. And sure enough, after a while he actually started going into canter quite explosively (well, explosively for him, anyway), with his hindlegs put to some good use. Of course, this was all while going to the left. Once we changed direction, it got a little trickier. He would still move into canter quite willingly, but now he kept getting the wrong lead. My instructor told me some things to try to get him on the right lead, but she added that she was so impressed with my seat and upper body that she was worried about interrupting me too much while I was working on that. However, I assured her I had it firmly in my mind and could manage to think of a few more things too.
In the end, I only managed to get him on the right lead once or twice in the new lap, but I was still very happy with both him and myself. I really felt myself affecting him with my seat, and he responded quite well the longer the lesson went on. Afterwards, my instructor said she wouldn’t ask me to do much more than just concentrate on my seat for a while, to solidify it. She also said she wanted me to keep riding Murphy, since its easiest for me to work on my seat on a horse I trust completely, and then I change to another horse now and then to test out my ‘new’ seat’. I hope she remembers this, because I sure don’t mind riding Murphy most of the semester. ;)