Time to give this another go, without putting any demands on myself to do it every week. But I do miss doing my lesson recaps and for a good while, at least, they did seem to help me improve as well.
Yesterday was the first lesson of the new semester for me (I missed the first week) and I ended up on the lovely Barka. I had a feeling the cold and the snow would make her frisky and that turned out to be the correct assumption. Fortunately, frisky for her goes more up than forward (not up as in on her hind legs or anything, but she gets rather high-stepping and bouncy) so I feel quite confident in handling her anyway. I was a bit bothered by how much she was tossing her head around, however. It was more than when I last rode her, and though the instructor said its common when she’s frisky, I did ask if perhaps her mouth should be looked at since she had been reluctant to take the bit when I bridled her. That was definitely new behaviour, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got some tooth issue. That said, the head shaking did stop once I got her to think about working and she spent some of that excess energy on more fruitful endeavours.
Other than that, she’s a very positive horse. She’s definitely got her own opinions—hello, mare—but she can certainly be persuaded to give work a good try. The exercises we worked on also suited her quite well; we focused on shortening and lengthening while keeping a steady rhythm and it gave her a lot to think about. The end result was an absolutely divine trot. The walk is still tricky to get good extension in and we only did a little cantering so I didn’t get very far with that. Her right canter is not great to start with and my transitions to canter remain a bit of a weakness (I move too much, especially if the horse goes against the aids like she did), so I am hoping for a bit more time next lesson to work on that. Once you actually get her cantering forward properly, she has a nice, round canter.
I am really hoping to get the opportunity for some private lessons on her during this semester; so far we seem to suit each other quite well.