Lesson with Vanessa

So the last fortnight hasn't been great at all.

Work has been really demanding (mentally and physically), I've been trying to hold make-up classes to earn some extra cash (only it takes up too much time and everyone has cancelled anyway), I've had virtually no money and hardly any time for my horses.

So things have been a little bit rough. I barely got through my last competition, we didn't get great scores but I wasn't too worried. We didn't have enough preparation.

Anyhow, things are starting to wind down a bit. I've got a months break before my next competition, and I'm starting to have 2 days off in a row.

I had a lesson with Vanessa Way today, it was great even though it took over half the lesson for my hands to de thaw! We worked on Medium work, since it's what is letting my test score down. I guess I just havn't worked out that button on Blue yet. But with a little help from Vanessa's dog, we discovered Blue has quite a nice Medium trot. It was so funny, the dog started chasing Blue down the long side of the arena snapping at her heels making her extend. When it came to the short end he would lag back a little, and on the corner he would start snapping and running along beside her. Blue got a little fed up in the end and gave a huge buck. I swear that's the 2nd time in 3 years she has bucked. I couldn't stop laughing, but we got some nice extensions in the end. I think now I just have to learn the feeling. It was so easy on Stylee, but Blue is a different horse.

What we did was collected Blue right up in the canter, and did lots of transitions from canter to walk and vice versa.

At the end of the lesson we had a 70% trot :) It was amazing!!