Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A little lost without any shows......

I'm feeling a little lost without showing of late, between the rain it has been hard concentrating on all of the items that Ms. Lat and myself have to work on improving. My new goal is making a schedule to accomplish one issue at a time and continue to improve the big girl. When we have a chance to ride I have been feeling that we need to just do a really good warm up and some lateral work. Due to the rain the rides have been infrequent so I feel Lat is doing well but we are not moving ahead. Hopefully I can get my head on straight and get to productive work.

Here is a list of the items I want to accomplish:

1. Looseness-working with Lat to get relaxed and into frame more quickly.
2. Bending- lots of walk-trot transitions and some counter bending
3. Working on our canter
4. Working on me, improving my position, balance and core.
5. Patience to accomplish all of the above.


Last year I had a schedule for five days, two of which I could introduce new items and the other two for reinforcing what we learned and at least one to hack around the farm. It seemed to work well but I need to adjust that somewhat and take a lesson once a week or so. I find that I get lost without anyone on the ground watching so I am never sure if I am accomplishing what I am aiming to accomplish.

Well if anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears. Please feel free to comment.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Rain Rain Go Away - Come again some other day!

Ms. Lat finally was ridden this week. I only rode last week on Wednesday then the rain came back. This week I had two opportunities to ride but my friend's mother died and I had to spend time with her. Hopefully I will be able to ride tomorrow.

This past tuesday when I did ride, Ms. Lat was wonderful especially after not being ridden for a week. We did leg yields and lots of transitions and she was just great. I did not show last weekend and I am not showing this weekend, so that gives us some time to try new things. We will practice cantering and maybe we will try jumping. I have not jumped a horse in 30 years it should be interesting. Anyone that has some advice on how to start her over fences would be appreciated.