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alobearMaria seems to have taken to heart my request for more variety in the horses I ride, because today she gave me Trio. He's a very pretty horse - mostly white with patches of two different shades of pale brown on his neck and hind quarters. My only previous experience of him was when Becky led a hack on him months ago, and spent most of the ride cantering sideways or on the spot, so I was prepared for some antics.
It turned out to be an excellent lesson. Kerry asked me if I'd ridden Trio before and, when I said no, she said, "Well, do the usual warm-up and then take the rest of the lesson to try out a few exercises, see where you think he needs work and then tell me what you've learned about him at the end. So, with free rein (boom, boom!) to do whatever I liked, I proceeded to put Trio through his paces.
He very willing but a little nervy and holds himself very tensely, which makes it difficult for him to bend on a circle. We worked a lot on circling, trying to get him to bend at the poll and back, rather than leaning over and almost falling round the circle. This got better with practice, especially when I got him to slow down a bit and concentrated on moving him from the inside leg to the outside rein. The other problem we worked on was his canter transition and canter stride. Trio will do everything you ask him to do very responsively, but his canter is very unbalanced. Rather than moving deliberately from trot to canter, he runs off very fast in trot and then sort of falls into canter by default, often feeling as if two of his legs are still trotting.
The difficulty with this is that the solution is counter-intuitive. When he speeds up in trot, it makes you think he's going really fast in the canter, so the automatic reflex is to squeeze back on the reins - but this just makes him drop back into trot again. What he actually needs is lots of leg, to make him go faster, which allows him to find a decent canter stride and catch his balance. This also improved as the lesson went on and, by the end, I'd got a couple of decent transitions from a steadier trot into a more developed canter, which was very satisfying.
All in all, a very interesting and liberating lesson, on a complex and fascinating horse, during which I felt I both learned and achieved a lot. Yay!
It turned out to be an excellent lesson. Kerry asked me if I'd ridden Trio before and, when I said no, she said, "Well, do the usual warm-up and then take the rest of the lesson to try out a few exercises, see where you think he needs work and then tell me what you've learned about him at the end. So, with free rein (boom, boom!) to do whatever I liked, I proceeded to put Trio through his paces.
He very willing but a little nervy and holds himself very tensely, which makes it difficult for him to bend on a circle. We worked a lot on circling, trying to get him to bend at the poll and back, rather than leaning over and almost falling round the circle. This got better with practice, especially when I got him to slow down a bit and concentrated on moving him from the inside leg to the outside rein. The other problem we worked on was his canter transition and canter stride. Trio will do everything you ask him to do very responsively, but his canter is very unbalanced. Rather than moving deliberately from trot to canter, he runs off very fast in trot and then sort of falls into canter by default, often feeling as if two of his legs are still trotting.
The difficulty with this is that the solution is counter-intuitive. When he speeds up in trot, it makes you think he's going really fast in the canter, so the automatic reflex is to squeeze back on the reins - but this just makes him drop back into trot again. What he actually needs is lots of leg, to make him go faster, which allows him to find a decent canter stride and catch his balance. This also improved as the lesson went on and, by the end, I'd got a couple of decent transitions from a steadier trot into a more developed canter, which was very satisfying.
All in all, a very interesting and liberating lesson, on a complex and fascinating horse, during which I felt I both learned and achieved a lot. Yay!
