Lesson 15

There was a schooling show today. I didn't take part, but it did mean there were lots of strange horses and people for Domino to pay attention to rather than me. We were kicked out of our regular small dressage arena, as that was a warmup area or something, and ended up in a large jumping area. We had to share this area with a teenage girl and her jumping instructor (they stayed mostly in the other half of the area), and also the guy who rides his grey horse every Saturday (token male rider as Anna called him once), he came in and rode around in the arena periodically.

I was having major steering issues today. Domino was much more interested in the other horses than what I was trying to have him do. At the beginning of the lesson, when the jumping girl walked through our half of the arena to get to the other side, Domino was quite convinced that he should be following the other horse. It took a lot of effort to keep him from doing so.

Even after that, we were trying to keep to a circle around Anna, but Domino didn't seem to like my idea of circling. When I was able to concentrate only on keeping him on the circle, it wasn't too bad. But when I was trying to concentrate on my position, or sit the trot, suddenly we were doing weird shapes with right angles into the fence...

It got so bad, that at the end of the lesson, Anna jumped on to make sure Domino did it right a few times. It wasn't like I was completely out of control or anything. I was never in danger of Domino running away with me, he would always stop when I wanted... he just didn't always go where I thought I was pointing him.

Good news is, Anna did say that next week I'd probably get to canter. Something to look forward to! :) Although that was before the worst of the steering issues... so she might want to fix that first.

Pictures of Domino!

It's Domino! With glowing eyes... and trying to untie himself with his teeth... And he's the sweet horse.

Next week we're pushing the lesson back an hour, as the sun is only just rising at 6:30 in the morning now, and it was even a little chilly this morning. It is beautiful though.

Obviously, I got to ride Domino again this morning. Our first time around the ring this week, we were going to walk over these poles, and then Anna was going to pull them off to the side... Domino almost tripped on them though, so we got to walk over them another 8 or 9 times.

Domino's big trot may not look so impressive here, but Anna jokingly asked if the camera had motion capture, to catch the air time. She told me I was looking a lot better this week (I'm glad there's no pictures of the first time I rode Domino).

Pia had found a golf ball somewhere... She was playing with it, and begging everyone to throw it for her all day.

More pictures of today can be found here.

Domino

Still no trail ride. Today I rode Domino again. Thankfully, I remembered what I'd learned 2 weeks ago, and his trot didn't seem nearly as bad this time.

Today consisted of more work on 20 meter circles. I ended up doing figure eights at a trot. The circles are still more oval or egg shaped, but they were getting better.

Don't know the plan for next week, but I'll be there. :)