Ramping up the lessons

Since Spencer has been home (about 8 weeks now) I have been continuing my weekly lessons. I have been riding in the grass ring at my house, but it just isn’t the same as having a sand ring. We are able to get some work done, but I haven’t been able to do the amount of cantering/loping that I really need to be doing to progress.

We have had a lot of rain this spring/summer, so the ground has been soft and slippery which isn’t the easiest to ride in – especially at the canter. Since I’m riding western pleasure type classes at the show, I wanted to school Spencer a lot and slow things down. There are a lot of divots in the ground now and the uneven footing makes it a bit harder to do that. The slow Western gaits require a flatter knee movement and the hooves just don’t get picked up as much as a regular trot/canter. Spencer has been tripping a bit and slipping here and there, so that has made me a bit nervous and frustrated.

I have my 2nd show coming up this Sunday (I’M NOT PANICKING AT ALL!!!!!!!???!!! LOL) and have resigned myself to knowing that my lope wouldn’t be as nice as it should be by this point. I think we’ll do ok in the horsemanship (pattern) and trail classes, since headset and speed aren’t as important as completing the pattern/obstacles in the proper way. (Disclaimer: Spencer isn’t built to be a super slow western pleasure horse and I don’t aim to have those crazy, slow, gimpy gaits that a lot of western horses do, but I do want to achieve a decent headset and nice consistency in the gaits…)

This week, my boarder – let’s call her W - made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She has a truck and trailer and offered to trailer Spencer over to my coach’s place which is only 10kms away. Coach has a sand ring, so it seemed like a win-win situation! We did one lesson on Tuesday night and after about 30 minutes; Spencer and I really started working well together again. We got all of our lope leads in the practice patterns and while his headset wasn’t perfect, it was becoming more consistent. We were even getting the lope up to a cone and halt much better (have to do that in a pattern on Sunday) and he was really tuned in and listening.

Bush hogged and tilled...just need some sand and levelling!

We are going back tonight and I can’t wait!

W and I were laughing that we hadn’t thought of this before, but since I’m just showing at the club level, it isn’t such a big deal. My sand ring should be finished next week (if I can pin down the farmer/contractor guy doing the work!!) so it shouldn’t be as much of an issue for the next shows.

Spencer loads and trailers really well so far, so that makes these little jaunts fun and not stressful. It is also on the second time I have taken him off the property and the first time I’ve trailered him somewhere and just got on and rode. He handled it all really well, so these 2 lessons have really been little confidence boosters in disguise! I’m hoping that confidence carries over to the show grounds on Sunday!

PS - sorry there aren't any good pictures - I'm finding it hard to get pics as I'm doing all this stuff - I almost forgot my cell phone on the trailer bumper on Tuesday