Maybe I can ride after all, Lesson #2

Well we survived our second lesson.  We rode with one of the kids who trailers in for lessons as D thought it would be good for both of us.  The plan was to work on some trail obstacles, and D didn't want to set up for both our lessons so he thought combining was a good idea, plus both of us need practice riding with other people.

So we warmed up doing circles 10m and 20m, changes in direction though the center from A-C and from B-E.  We worked on the different bends the horses should follow on the 10m versus the 20m.  For me this  mostly involved keeping Oscars shoulder up and inside leg on to keep him from falling into our circle.

Once we've done this a bunch in both directions, we would do our 10m circle then canter out for 5-10 strides then back to the jog.  The idea was to keep a bit of the bend out of the 10 meter into our lope (shoulders up haunches to the inside).

After a little walk break we worked on getting the bend for our circles on the straight wall while going straight and asking for a lope. We'd lope 3-6 20 meter circles then back to a walk and work on shoulders and hips while walking.

We had some great jog work, and I felt like I finally figured out Oscars lope.  I wasn't afraid to use my reins a little bit, to help me frame him up a little bit especially when it was something we were working on at the walk and the jog it was just a continuation of that.

I felt like I was really able to RIDE him this time rather than just being a passenger at the lope.  We had some absolute great lope steps and some awesome transitions from the walk to the trot.  I had some moments where I was like "This right here is why I love western pleasure".  And no not the head bobbing sideways lope that you see at the shows, but the soft easy slow lope that's so wonderful when you find it. 

D said that Oscar's legs were the best he's seen them in a long time.

And we never got around to trail, but that was ok too :)