Building a Canter: Back in the Saddle

Back in January, I talked about how I was working to build a canter for Courage. It was all on the lunge line, because I wasn't cleared to ride.

If you remember the post, I started working towards creating good moments in the canter itself first.

I'm now back in the saddle (if not riding well) (SOB), and I was fascinated to see how all the lunging would turn out. Our first intentional canter was last Sunday. It wasn't brilliant, but it was quiet and obedient and check out this canter moment:

#perchypotato

Interesting similarity there, wouldn't you say?

Next in the lunging progression was to get the transition into canter more balanced and back-to-front, which took weeks of training to get to and then even more time of careful, thoughtful training to solidify.

it's actually gotten better but screenshotting lunging video makes me want to gouge my own eyes out

Of course, this isn't a perfect 1:1 ratio we're talking about here--I was able to control a lot more variables from the ground and if Courage had some "moments", whatever, my feet were on solid ground. Under saddle, I'm leery of "moments" because they make my body mad. Oh and I can't ride for shit. And get tired in like 4 minutes.

But. In my lesson this week, Courage apparently decided to discard the "be perfect and take care of mom" card and throw the "right lead is haaaaaard" card in the mix instead.

um hellooooooo have we met?

There was definitely no sitting down to play dressage queens and lots and lots and lots of my trainer saying "give. don't brace. give. forward. give." while Courage remembered that cantering right is something he actually can do, thought it's admittedly hella hard with a giant, off-balance #perchypotato inhibiting him.

BUT THAT TRANSITION AMIRIGHT

So we had a lot of this in between:

air time!

giant Courage buck!

And it was good, because I do know that right lead is hard for him so I need to not make it harder by bracing my knees and holding with my hands. Also it was fascinating to ride through in draw reins vs the standing martingale--in the standing, I'd grab the neck strap and get super braced in my shoulders and way too involved with my upper body. With the draw reins, I know he can't 100% flip himself inside out and blast off, plus I have nothing to grab, which means I kinda have to listen to my trainer.

Apparently she has some good ideas, too. Weird.

Anyways. I never actually sat down on him because that was too much pressure for his brain that day (plus who are we kidding I suck at riding the canter right now), but after finally making my body do what trainer was suggesting, we ended on this canter:

this i will take

So I guess the answer to "will the lunging work translate to under saddle, since a lot of things change in that process" is yeah pretty much I'm riding a whole new horse.

I mean. My feel is waaaay off right now, so I naturally told my trainer how those were our BEST TRANSITIONS EVER and she was like "yes, you're very smart, shut up" and then I watched the video and realized that perhaps our left lead transitions were less stunning.

feet on ground does = win

Less stunning still means calm and rideable and ready to move forward, all of which are new since last fall. Plus, when I asked for canter, he cantered vs just sort of thinking about it for 10 strides and then maybe or maybe not bolting.

I have a long ways to go in terms of rehab and after this ride I most definitely went home and laid down and took a lot of drugs.

so thrilled with him

AND I just have to share this trotting picture because I super love good trotting pictures.

right?

It's slow going. It's going to stay slow going. But at least it's slow going towards a light on the horizon now. I'm excited to see what we can do as I get more balanced and able to ride and he gets more confirmed in this new "cantering" business.

PS and yes there is video but due to laying down + drugs, I didn't get it edited last night.