First Dressage Lesson of 2023

After 6 months(6 months!) of working at home with no haul outs or lessons we headed out Saturday to SW’s.  We closed the outside doors to help with his focus but did not lunge prior to riding as I haven’t been all winter.  After a few minutes of basic ground work and a couple of trot circles on the lead at spooky spots, we tacked up and I got on.  And he was fabulous.  Settled right down to working walk on a small circle, to a bigger circle, to walking the whole ring.  

We did some figures, a quick trot each way and I waited for the verdict of whether we are on track or not.  Thankfully, SW only had a couple of position corrections including not pushing with my seat, instead using a boot tap with my leg, and then going to the stick.  Also, once in a while I need to pretend like I’m pushing against a hand between my shoulder blades, but she said on the whole my posture is much more upright.  

Then SW showed me a couple of exercises to add at the walk to start collecting a tiny bit.  The first was taking a 10m circle at the walk, keeping the bend and the rhythm, and making it smaller and smaller until it turns into either a turn on the forehand or a turn on the haunches.  This was predictably difficult and Cruise let out some grunts while we played our way through it each way.  Definitely will take some work to master but I could already feel his back and shoulders lift in our attempts so +++ on that.  The other exercise was a 10m walk circle figure eight going from true bend on one circle to counter bend on the other.  Cruise found this easier and I could really feel him abducting with his front legs which was interesting.

Then after some 20m trot serpentines, which SW pronounced,  “perfect, balanced, rhythmic” and a bit of big little the trot, which led to some very very nice trot steps, SW asked if Cruise had ever done stretchy trot.  He hadn’t, but when we tried a circle of working trot  to stretchy trot, he stretched right down within one step of my asking by kneeling a bit.  SW wanted a touch of forward and proclaimed it just about perfect after we transitioned to sitting with shorter reins and then to walk.  She also commented that with a coefficient of 2 on stretchy stuff he was going to rack up points.  I knew that but nice to hear from someone else!

Overall it was a fantastic confirmation that we are on the correct path.  SW and I both agree he is ready to show Intro as far as the movements go but also agree he needs a lot more exposure to other horses and environments so he can focus on me during a test.  To that end we’re going to start doing lessons in her outdoor round pen that is surrounded by horses, gradually transitioning to her outdoor ring that is the same.  Probably alternating with rides in the indoor with another horse.  I’m going to continue with what is working at home, adding in more trot poles to canter work(we’ve had successes a couple of times recently!) and more farm “trail” rides. SW suggested just going to some local schooling shows but not riding or competing unless he is reasonably calm.  Also she suggested looking for clinics for environment but in a lower key way.  I think those are both really good ideas.  My daughter is graduating from college(could not be prouder of her Electrical Engineering degree!) and we are going to Scotland in May, so I think things will really get rolling in June.

We shall see!