What is a twenty meter circle anyway?

Lots to report over here with another successful weekend of riding behind us. If you live in the Northeast you know that we got an inordinate amount of rain and a freak thunderstorm during the week that left everything a big wet mess. We were able to get the ring sorta dragged Saturday enough to do some flat work and Riley got reintroduced to the Pessoa. In the ring we worked on slightly raised cavalettis and two canter poles set 60 ft apart. I could feel the gears turning in Riley's brain approaching the 4 raised poles like, "Am I supposed to jump all of these"? Luckily he didn't, though he felt like cantering a few of them made much more sense!

I took a trip down to Dover and Maryland Saddlery on the hunt for a few things for the pony and a dressage whip. I was also looking for a new helmet, but they didn't have any of the new ones in yet:/ I did pick out a new whip and also picked up this little beauty that I've been obsessed with (plus 30% off)!

From Dover's site: Because who doesn't love houndstooth?

Over at Maryland Saddlery I found lots of cool things for the pony including a really nice running martingale for dirt cheap and two bits to try that we both $2.99 each! I resisted the urge to pick up a pair of barely used Beval open fronts (full set) for an absolute steal. Will power, I have it. I've been thinking about getting a real dressage tack set up for Riley but mostly so I can justify getting this:

!!!! Stars !!!!

I resisted. We're not there yet! But it is darn cute and I think Riley would look adorable in a little bit of bling. We played around with the pony a little more as we're trying to see if she'll be a good fit for a kid looking for a jumper pony. We free jumped her on Saturday afternoon, but we had a little fun along the way...

Best way to get to the free school. Except I could only turn left and almost fell off laughing.

This pony is such a brave, scopey thing!

Ping!

She kinda blew us away in the free school. She didn't blink an eye at the barrels and jumped out of her skin over everything. I swear if she was one hand taller I'd want to keep her!!! I rode her on Sunday in a plain full cheek snaffle and a running martingale and she was much sweeter under saddle. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure I'm a good enough rider for her. I hope she finds a good little kid soon because she's got way too much talent to just sit around!

Riley and I warmed up for our lesson while Emily set up some sort of torture exercise at one end of the ring. I had the loveliest, soft forward horse under me and I thought it might be worthwhile to warm him up completely on a loose rein. He obliged with a polite WTC in both directions which I thought would help loosen up his muscles and back after his lunge work the day before. My lesson with Riley was both easy and hard (+ I thought I'd torture myself and do the dressage portion in a new, shorter-than-my-usual jumping length). You see, as it turns out not having a real ring or a dressage court of any kind to practice in results in an astounding inability to carve out a proper 20 meter circle at ANY gait. Emily set up an innocuous (tape-measured) 20 meter circle with ground poles set at the 1/4 marks of the circle. Then, she put potted plants in the corners to identify the outside edge of the shape.

Working that booty.

You can see the line of our track in the photo above, but this seemingly easy exercise was REALLY, REALLY hard for us. Emily required us to be accurate in our bend, contact, tempo, and straightness over the poles. We did pretty well once we got going and the big take away for me was realizing that if I was providing the right kind of support with my leg and hand I could "set" the bend through his body and stop worrying about the shape and that this would prove even more influential for 10 and 15 meter circles. The wheels kinda fell off at the canter which is not surprising at all. But we hacked away at it. Riley started getting really stubborn about picking up his left lead (what craziness is that) so I asked for the dressage whip. Historically, he gets pretty offended by whips, though I can ride him with one without an issue. I like having one there if I need it and lately I've been needing to make reinforcements without taking my hands off the reins... enter: dressage whip. Well, no big surprise he was not pleased, not one bit. Homeboy got himself worked into a frazzled mess and I did not give in to his protest. Finally, I got off and Emily hopped on and finished the conversation. He was still pretty darn stubborn with her too at first and he even kicked out at the whip at one point, but she reset his brain and got him looking SO fancy. I wanted to get video of her riding him, but I was too busy listening/watching but holy crap can he look special. I got back on and completed some canter work without drama and we finished the exercise with reinforcing the twenty meter circle at the trot.

And phew, he's looking very good!!! But seriously Niamh, shoulders back!

We moved on to the jumping portion of the lesson (thank god) where we did more grid work. I think it's cool how far we've come that his reward is jumping!

All poles on the ground to start

We trotted in and cantered out to start, halting afterward and repeating in the opposite direction. Emily set the first bounce up and it was clear that Riley had forgotten how to jump a bounce as he trotted it instead.

Talented.

But, he remembered next time around and jumped through nicely, so we added a one stride to a vertical.

Which he could not be less impressed about.

Just a canter stride.

Looking through the videos (thank you wonderful SO) I saw a few things of note... firstly, I am not someone who flexes well in my ankles (no thanks to years and years of competitive gymnastics as a kid), because of this I generally keep my foot in the stirrup a little less than most people to help stretch my ankle joint, but you'll never see my heels jammed down. I wanted to see how moving my stirrups up another hole would impact my position and I think it's pretty obvious that it's an improvement, my leg looks much more solid. I also have the stiffest hips of all time (seriously, my #1 problem as a rider) and having a shorter stirrup length helps me collapse/fold better at my hips. Now that my release is much better, I might think about maintaining a little more contact with Riley's mouth, but I think for now and until we're schooling bigger course we're okay. Furthermore, I think that when the jumps get bigger, I'll see even more improvement. We're really not getting any air time, so there's not a whole lot of time for anything to happen over the jump.

Once we put all the pieces together

Riley has gone from jumping a little under powered and up to jumping out of stride, but now he's getting a touch flat over fences. We're going to introduce some V poles on verticals to help encourage him to jump a little rounder before we go jacking the fences up. For our first few jumping lessons of the year, I couldn't be happier with his attitude over fences.

Good boy Riley!

The poor dude was very tired indeed after his lesson and got a well-needed bath and hand grazing in the beautiful 60 degree sunny day! I realized just before I was about to leave that it was almost the end of the month so I asked the SO to hold Riley while we attempted to get a conformation shot. It was comical to be sure. But this was as good as it was gonna get (never mind him standing over his shoulder to reach Mr. Treat Man).

No I will not put my ears forward

He looks okay for being a few weeks back into work (don't look at his weird hair, it's a disaster). He lost a little more weight than usual this winter, and his topline suffered over his vacation, but he'll get fit in no time. Now that the ground has firmed up we'll start walking up and down the big hills and trainer rides will start this week!