I had a lesson last Thursday night, and it was a lot of fun. I'm focusing right now on keeping Jaina moving forward, stopping on "whoa", backing up, and loping. I'm supposed to lope 15-20 circles per ride. I have a tendency to hang on her face, causing her to be unsettled, raise her head, and not relax. So each ride my goal is to do the following:
- Keep my hands forward, no hanging on her mouth
- On a circle, correct my laying my outside rein on her neck, using outside leg, and pulling the inside rein towards the center of the circle and not back to my waist.
- Stopping by putting my feet forward in the stirrups and saying whoa.
- Teaching Jaina that "whoa" actually means back up, and not stop.
- Keeping her going forward and not sucking back and over-collecting.
I also tried on a saddle over the weekend that apparently doesn't fit. I'm bummed out because it was really comfy, but there were large dry spots when I was done riding. I guess it's not wide enough. The annoying thing is that if the saddle is too wide, the underside of the horn (pommel?) pushes on her wither. So she needs something wide enough for her shoulders with enough clearance over her wither. She's harder to fit than I expected!
Fun times, and an exhausting weekend! Can't wait for my next lesson!
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3 comments:
I had a hard to fit horse - an arabian saddle worked pretty well, actually.
Glad to hear you are looking into reining - it looks so fun!
You know I own Arabians, so I sympathize with the saddle fit. I had the WORST time fitting Zing. I think you will have so much fun with Jaina. I enjoy watching the reining horses do their thing. It's so much fun to watch I can only imagine how much fun it would be to do!
Glad to see another San Diego blogger :) Your mare looks like a lot of fun and I am jealous board is so much cheaper down south!!
http://thegianthorses.blogspot.com/
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