It's been an exciting day for me. Izzy and I had a lesson this morning, which went really, really well. The only part that wasn't great was my own fault. I changed her bit from a full cheek snaffle (single jointed) to an eggbutt french link, and she fussed with it. It wasn't bad, but she seems to like the other bit much better.
In the lesson, we worked on keeping her marching in her walk. She does tend to dawdle, and I need to stop letting her. To fix this, Cathy had me swing her with one leg, then the other, using the whole leg from the hip to the ankle, if that makes sense. It's pretty weird to have Izzy far enough along that we can finally start working on equitation again. I know that I adopted a very defensive position to ride her initially, and I need to counteract that now. We also worked on keeping her downward transitions forward and moving her off my leg in small increments. I'm going to start doing spiral in/spiral out circles to get her thinking about that and continue working on our turns on the forehand. Cathy did admire our canter departs, as I haven't let Izzy run through them.
What a good pony. We were out of treats, and she was very sad about that.
The other exciting news is that I probably have a saddle lined up to buy. Cathy has been very gracious about letting me ride in hers, but she does, you know, like to ride in her own saddle as well. She has several horses that will pretty much only go in her treeless, so I can't use it a whole lot. I hate to say much before everything's certain, but I may have a saddle on the way here by the end of the week. Cross your fingers for me. This is wonderful news.
So... happy Aimee, happy pony.
School started today, but I only have a couple classes I actually have to attend. The rest are online. That means hopefully more riding time than I usually have during the semester.
Good luck with the saddle - she seems to be doing so well for you now!
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