This week in lessons

Last week's lesson of having riders turn too early, too late, and just right to trot poles was very illuminating. Some riders seemed to struggle a lot with taking a risk and turning a little too late, which may explain why turning too early is such an issue.

I think I am going to keep this "Goldilocks" lesson in mind, and continue to try to have students exaggerate skills to find the happy medium.

My other note from last week is that we need to work on canter and jumping fitness, both for horses and riders, in order to be ready for show season.

So...this week we will hopefully be outside as much as possible, and we will be working on canter fitness, and jump fitness. This will combine with exercises to help rider's keep their eyes up and thinking while jumping...darn thinking!

Alongside this, we will do a new Goldilocks exercise: instead of working on turning, we will be doing a Goldilocks exercise working on finding the right canter to the first jump of a course, but first going too slow...then too fast...then hopefully just right!

 Too often rider's start with not enough canter, and then have to let the horse increase as the course continues along...but this encourages the horse to be quick/rushy despite the rider, when it is better that the horse feels it has enough canter to do the entire course, and can listen/trust its rider to put at the jumps with enough power to clear them. You will still need to rebalance as the course goes along, but by starting off with the right canter, you start off on the right hoof!

Please remember your own bug spray: the bugs aren't too bad, but do start to come out by about 7pm.

Karen