Another week on Gamir turned into another week on Murphy, and I wasn’t exactly about to complain about that. Murphy seemed pretty pleased too, especially when treated to many minty treats. I am not entirely sure what he (or any of the other horses) think of my occasional habit of ... well ... sort of ... singing to them as I tack them up, but at least they don’t run away in fear. Of course, they are tethered ...
Once down in the arena, I was pleased to find a much perkier Murphy than last time that I had him for a regular lesson. Though, he wasn’t an auto-dressage pony like most recently either. Just his normal, relatively co-operative self.
The exercise was more or less the same as last week, namely focusing on being able to get either side to be the ‘soft’ side, the inner side, and to keep this softness through transitions between different gaits. I was, overall, fairly pleased with Murphy’s performance at a walk, though the trotting was less stellar to start with. Partly, I was distracted from the exercise to start with as I focused, once again, on my leg position. I started out with stirrups that felt just a notch too long, which created tension in my leg as I tried to think of ‘bent knee’ instead of ‘heel down’ and ended up feeling as if the stirrup would slip off.
I then shortened them, and did okay through the warm-up. However, as we started working more in earnest, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. So, I put my stirrups up instead, figuring that maybe it would lessen then tension even further to not have to think about keeping the stirrup on my foot at all. Overall, that seemed to make a big difference in terms of my riding become more focused and efficient, and I do think my leg position improved from it. I am just a bit concerned that if I ride too often without stirrups, I am just avoiding the problem of being able to have the right leg position for when I do use stirrups. Other than that, I have no problem going without them on Murphy.
What about his performance, though? Well, once again, I was deemed ‘too nice’. We were working at a trot, with short stretches of walking at four points around the arena, and I was getting what I thought were pretty good results. Certainly, I had gotten him to respond much more quickly to the walk-to-trot transition (other way around is no problem at all ;P), and the trot was coming out pretty good. But she felt he still put in a few strides of half-ambling, half-trotting before reaching the proper trot. He doesn’t have the best co-ordination when transitioning, so he sort of ambles away before finding the right stride.
That was not acceptable. So, she asked me to tap his hindleg lightly with the whip just before the transition to get them more in under and get him more explosive. However, he’s not the only one with poor co-ordination. ;P I am not good at all at using my whip precisely when also concentrating on leg aids and hand position. In the end, she borrowed my whip and came up besides him to do the light tap, and boy did we get an explosive result. After doing that once or twice (and stopping him from bouncing off at a canter instead of coming into a trot with his balance retained), I got some beautiful transitions.
I should note that I don’t feel this was in any way stressful for Murphy. His ears were forward all the time, and his reaction once he got into that good trot was one of clearly enjoying himself. For one thing, I felt that her being able to tap him lightly at just the right time and at the right point was a lot more refined than anything I could have managed. And that, I think, is part of my problem when I am asked to ask more of the horse. I often feel I cannot be precise and clear enough. Even if I can keep myself from doing more—as in, getting overactive—I still feel hesitant about asking for something more firmly if I am not absolutely certain I asked in the right way.
I also continued to work on my leg position,