Akeem's First Lesson

I will get stills and stuff from his video but he did a lot better than I could have ever hoped. Originally, since this is the first time I have had a riding lesson with this instructor, I wanted to bring a horse that showed me riding my best without the distraction of the horse that I could be fixed. But no, wait, I wanted dressage lessons to improve my skills in order to better work Akeem. It makes more sense then to bring him than my older pros.

This poor pony is really mistreated in some ways. Less than 50 rides probably somewhere close to 30 that he has had, not worked in about a month(due to inclement weather), and then driven nearly 2 hours to do a lesson. The boy was just set up for a train wreck.

He showed the "ill" behaviors that he has well without overdoing them. Some bucking and kicking, a lot of head tossing, and his inability to do straight lines. It was really quite wonderful. Since he was doing his normal falling in sprinkled with a little less attention span than normal, we really got to work on rebalancing him. Making him stop falling into the right is tricky since it is a sneaky thing he does. It isn't the standard "I will pull you into the right lane" that I am used to with the more expressive horses. No, no he is a smart fellow.

To help him rebalance himself, I was to ensure that he used the rail or made a straight line at all times. Something that he has extreme difficulty with. For such a green horse though he quickly got over that with more aptly timed cues from my calf muscles, and rein aides. He head tossed quite a bit which i was advised to drive him through and that ironically seemed to have relaxed him. The more I rode, the more he seemed to just start relaxing his entire body. His head stopped curling, his tail became quiet and his short back lengthen a hair.

Once we graduated off of a small 15m square we progressed to 30 then of course the entire arena. By the time we were doing the entire arena he was being asked to flex his neck both in and out of the arena gently while maintaining the cadence and rhythm in the corners.

He did it. Not always and sometimes he did really squirrely things but for the most part he did it all to his best.

HW: work on straightness, FIND LINES AND DO THEM. He needs to be rebalanced to so work on making things the right shape and think about guiding his legs more.

Planted another tray of 72 seeds mostly lettuces, some other herbs and radishes this evening. Also, I got my little do-dad that will allow me to reuse old newspaper to make pots. :D

Friday, February 19, 2010

2 Comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like you had a heap of fun with Akeem, the litte devil :) and made progress to boot, well done to both of you!! Look forward to pitcures and hurry up about it. Wish I could send you the news papers from the milk bar but it would cost a small fortune. Happy planting and even happier lessons...you rock girl!!!

Miranda Joy Turpin said...

I can't wait to see the pictures. Akeem seems like a fun horse to ride. I know you mentioned some "issues" he has but to me that's what makes riding fun. It's a challenge. Just think of how cool it will be when he is riding straight and round, light on the bit, with impulsion. Whoo-ee! That will be a great day!

 
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