The exceedingly nasty weather had me thinking twice about riding today, but given that we do ride indoors, I figured I just had to drag myself off to the stables in spite of the fact that the cold and rain no doubt would make my throat even worse (it still feels like it has odd lumps in it ;P).
Once there, the rain had at least let up, or possibly stayed on the other side of the river, but the wind was still impressive. I knew I definitely didn’t want a skittish horse. But then again, I never do. Murphy would have been great today, but he got off easy this week and I got put on Gamir. Which isn’t bad at all, save for the tacking up part. He’s gotten a lot more irritable lately, and added biting to the kicking he always used to do. Unlike Murphy, its also hard to tell when he’ll do either, as he rarely gives you any warning by looking unhappy with you first. I manage the grooming fine enough, and the saddling too, but bridling him has gotten tricky because he will actually try to bite when you put the reins over his head and when you put the bit in his mouth. So, when he decided to be difficult about taking the bit today, I really didn’t feel like sticking my fingers into his mouth.
Its too bad, really, because he’s such a well-schooled and obedient horse to ride. He just really doesn’t like being groomed and tacked up, and he’s gotten worse over the years.
Proof of this was had once we were down in the arena and I had mounted up. From being rather grumpy a moment before from having his girth tightening, Gamir changed to being pretty happy with life. Though, I did feel right off that he had a lot of tension in his back. He is getting on in years, and its a problem he’s had on and off. Massage and better saddles has helped some, but at times he can feel really stiff. Quite often he will do little mini-bucks when you ask for too much too early when he is like this, so I knew I’d have to be careful.
As we were going to continue with counter cantering today, we started off with some trotting where we were asked for flexion outwardly instead of inwardly through the corners. Given Gamir’s back, I couldn’t ask for too much to start with (still got one little buck at the walk, which is where he locks up the most when he’s like this), which made for an odd change from the very effective riding I’ve tried for from the start of late. And naturally I ended up being too passive, so my instructor had to ask me to get him trotting with more energy to help limber him up.
After a while of that, he did end up feeling much better, and once we moved onto first some sitting trot and then some canter in circles, he was moving quite well and I think the canter came out very nicely. Of course, he’s got a pretty darn good canter naturally, so I can’t take too much credit for that. But at least I didn’t make it worse by falling back into any of my old habits.
Once we had worked on the regular canter for a while, we moved onto counter cantering. This time, we were instructed to ride the horses through a corner, the short side of the arena and another corner, asking for flexion to the outside in both corners. And then, towards the end of the second corner, we were to ask for counter canter and then we’d keep that going down the long side and through a soft turn across to the other long side.
Getting counter canter out of such a well-trained horse as Gamir was not at all a problem. Holding it through the turn was a problem the first few times, before I was reminded that I had to use my inner leg (inner being determined by which side the flexion was to) to keep the canter going. The next problem that then cropped up was my inner leg coming up whenever I put it to use. The pilates has helped me strengthen it so its not as bad as before, but the reflex to pull it up when I use it is still there. And whenever I caught myself doing it and forced myself to lengthen my leg again, it would introduce some odd tensions and my seat would end up bouncy instead of deep.
Overall, though, I guess I did quite well. Afterwards, my instructor was quite pleased, and noted what a huge difference there is in how I sit a canter compared to a year ago. Now I have a deep seat, she said, and I am able to ride effectively while sitting still. I did note I felt that the actual transitions had not been so good (most came after a stride or two of trot, which a horse of Gamir’s training should not need) since every time I tried for more energy and collection, I wasn’t sure if I was getting that or getting the tension back. She did agree it was a very fine line between the two, but thought the end result was very good even with that problem in mind. But I do need to learn when I need to be careful with him and when I can start upping the pressure. Next time, perhaps.