You all know this horse. He's the cutest, sweetest, smartest, and most fun jumping horse. Sometimes we torment each other with dressage, but never very much.I'd been hoping that our dressage lesson would let us work on cool dressage tricks so I could expand my sad and limited repertoire, but instead we worried about position and accuracy. Good things, but not what I had in mind.
Today I busted out the dressage saddle again so we could practice stuff from our lesson. We engaged our core, activated our dressage position, cantered and counter cantered.
After finishing our canter work to one direction, Cuna wanted to putter to a stop. I kept him going on principle. We did a 15 meter circle to get him soft and on my outside aids.
As we came out of the turn, I asked him to hold his gait but lengthen his stride down the longside. He sort of tried, I sorted of stayed balanced, it was ok.
Another circle at the end to collect. We stayed balanced around the short side. Circle to prepare, and we went in to the wind.
It was magical. I could practically hover above him I had so much hang time. Boom! Boom! Boom! We just flew down the longside.
We cantered the other direction, then came back to trot and tried again. This time? No hesitating, fussing about the contact, or wondering what I wanted. Not gonna lie--I can't wipe the smile off my face.
That's ride folks: Cuna has lengthenings. Watch out dressagers--we have arrived.
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| All your ribbon are belong to us |
We're on track for our goal of doing Training 3 and First 1 at a dressage show this summer. Who else is working towards goals?
Hi, I am new to your blog. My name is Cindy. I was totally hooked my your header!
ReplyDeleteI loved the part of your post about not being able to wipe the smile off your face. I get that!
I have goals I am working towards. I just made the decision a few months ago that I want to enter my paint in some ranch horse competitions. He is a good old ranch horse who came to me with a butt load of baggage from some "cowboy up" owners. Slowly but surely we have been working through "his stuff" to get to the good stuff, and he is starting to shine. Moving off of my legs, reading my seat instead of waiting for me to pull the crap out of his mouth. Simple things like moving forward with some softness and collection instead of as hard as fast as he can go. My first competition is in June. I can't wait!
Goals? Meh.... weather sucks too much to work on goals. :( We will though. Daylight savings time is coming up soon. Yay! I can't wait for summer!
ReplyDeletethat sounds awesome! Koda and I are planning to hit quite a few dressage shows this year (surprisingly I'm closest to a dressage hotspot.. whodda thunk?). We may just be doing the W/T tests in the spring, but want to try my hand at Training (next level from W/T up here).
ReplyDeleteTrying to get above a 68% at second and maybe move on to 3rd at the end of the season. And of course move up to Prelim this year too. Yay for boom boom dressage!
ReplyDeleteCuna posts always make me smile...give him a "thank you" pat for me.
ReplyDeleteMy plans including entering a schooling show, if not on my own horse, than on someones horse, just to gain experience since I am an H/J convert.
ReplyDeleteGo Cunafish! It sounds like we've got similar goals for the summer. Show in some 1m jumper shows, play around with first level, kick some novice butt at some HT, and maybe if all goes magically well, move up to Training and qualify for a T3D... though that's not so much a goal as it is a dream ;)
ReplyDeleteExciting!!! Training Level for us this year :)
ReplyDeleteYay. Sounds like you guys are rocking this dressage stuff.
ReplyDeleteWoman. I thought your dressage lesson was cancelled? Tell me when your next one is. Or, your next fun dressage ride!
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to say that TB's have the most enthusiastic lengthens. Epic.
ReplyDeleteMy goal is to do First 1 without having my horse try and lengthen throughout the whole test. Have fun with training 3 - that test is awesome.
So exciting! I can't wait to start doing "fun" things in dressage.
ReplyDeleteYeah Cuna!! Awesome :)
ReplyDeleteGoals = getting out to show more this year :)