After missing last Monday due to a seminar, I was eager to get back to working on Barka this week. Maybe a little too eager, since I found myself a bit unfocused and doing a bit of this and that initially. However, after warming up, I did settle on doing some of that canter work since she certainly had felt strong enough for it during the jumping class last Friday.
Initially, Barka very much disagreed. She was fine with cantering when I stood up a bit and just allowed her to mind her own business during the warm-up, but once I started asking for canter from a more collected trot or even a walk she balked. I applied the whip and was rewarded with some surly kicks, though one of those did lead into a very nice canter. It definitely took quite a bit of persuasion, but I did get a circle or two of decent canter in both directions. After that, she was a lot more malleable and I asked for a bit more work at walk and trot before wrapping up. By that time she was insisting that she was very tired indeed. I also noticed that around 2/3’s into the hour, she had more or less switched which rein she was supporting herself on. She starts with the right but by the end it was more to the left.
For riding a dressage test, I’ll obviously need to get to the point where she doesn’t question the canter aids, at least not during the test itself. I should probably put in canter transitions during every lesson, just to remind her that I will insist on them.