Collection

This is a great site to refer to when seeking to be on the bit with collection.

Work then Play!!

Today we started off with me eating a cookie and drinking some water. Lol. Then we took off to the arena. Once we got there I tried to get Mayzee on a forward walk. Which for her seems almost impossible. After attempting that I picked up a nice trot and started our workout. Today our workout, well I'll call it the "crazy spirals." This is where we start out in a large circle, pick up the trot, and about 5 times around we begin to spiral in. You have to keep your inside leg consistent for the bend, outside leg keeping her forward, in side hand leading into the circle, and outside hand steady to control the bend. On top of all that you have to keep your basic position at the trot. Once in a 10m circle, or a volt, we begin to push her out in whats called a leg yield. This is where you use your inside leg with intense pressure, outside hand opens out to make the horse step sideways back into the original circle. After that horrifying workout we decided it was time to have a little bit of fun! Cross-rails! :) Sam set up a little two jump figure eight course and let me trot over some cross-rails. Mayzee was great and so was I! She took them like nothing tucking in her front legs, and kept a very forward trot and nice lope throughout it all. My main problem was my release, I caught her mouth a couple of times when she landed. But after that I kept my position great. I would like to see myself keeping my leg a little more forward with my heels down for next time. Although, it is hard with dressage stirrups. All in all it was a fantastic lesson and a huge work out. But it was fun!

Rodeo

After the little incident on Sunday Sam decided to just work me on the lunge for a half hour.
We worked on the same basics as before, position, trotting with and without stirrups, etc. Only this time Sam decided to have Mayzee canter out for a bit. Only Mayzee wasn't too fond of the green horse in the round pen "coming out of the bushes" So as soon as the two of us asked her for a canter she went off! Bucking, jumping, you know, all the good stuff.... Luckily I had my hands in position around the saddle and managed to stay on. So we thought we would get away from the scary bush and try again. We failed again. So I jumped down and we cantered her out on the lunge until she relaxed and called it a day.

Trail Ride

Today I went on a two hour trail on Mayzee with Sam and Ki. I got there right on time as usual but today is a Sunday and we scheduled for 10:30. Sam ended up being late and just as I was about to get up and leave, she arrived. We tacked up and decided to go for a nice trail ride up to the toll road bridge. It was beautiful and Sam told me all about her before death wish list. Hahaha. Mayzee, as usual, was terribly slow and I found myself having to get after her and get her trotting every few steps to keep up. Not very pleasurable. By the time we headed back I was exhausted and needed to get down and walk so I wasn't too sore. This worked out since Sam needed to stop at the barn real quick anyway and as I held the horses I began to feel really dizzy. I asked to sit down a while. It continued to be a step and sit procedure until Sam gave me a leg up to see if she could get me home. This didn't work either. We stopped at the general store and a very nice family bought me a water and a Snicker bar. After finishing the bar and calling my dad to pick me up I was all set for the hike back home.

That is the closest I could find to look like Mayzee, a bay draft with a blaze.

Four weeks in...

Well I'm about 4 weeks in on riding Mayzee today which means we have already covered basic muscle training and memory and worked once on a lunge line. It was my second day cantering and I feel a lot more successful this time around as I could tell the last time I had no position what so ever and I was able to keep my contact this time. Last time I met with Sam I had to give my long and short term goals which are as fallows: Shortterm-Have a steady seat at the canter with all the proper aids. Long Term- Have confidence around all horses, big and small, and be able to train younsters. Today we also went over some poles at the trot and raised them as we became more successful. I would like to work on getting in to the two-point much faster and more collected so I can direct Mayzee over the jumps more successfully, as she tended to veer to the left. Other then that I believe my lesson was one of the best yet! Mayzee is becoming more quick to respond to my leg and is able to keep a good pace with me.

The picture is a picture of a lady named Libby on this site.I chose this picture because Libby has the perfect balance and leg position that I wish to achieve.