Despite gusty winds, Saturday’s lesson proved worthwhile. Eli did not seem bothered by the wind, and I continued to improve along the lines of finding appropriate distances out of a consistent pace for the hunter ring.
The course that is currently set in the arena is a little awkward for hunters, but considering that most of the horses who school in that arena are jumpers, this makes sense. We still had a few options that worked for our purposes. Things like long approaches.
I tried to ride forward without speeding up and I think I accomplished it more often than not. What turned out to give us (i.e., me) the most trouble weren’t the singles off long approaches but the inside diagonal line out of a turn. You know what doesn’t work to turn? Pulling the inside rein. You know what does work great to turn? The outside leg. This is one of those universally important things that my brain just drops into a cache of inaccessible facts somewhere every so often.
Anyway, we finally got the turns to the inside diagonal sorted and finished on a very positive note that made me feel like I made some real progress in my ride.
It took like 3 years of Mark telling me to stop pulling on the inside rein to finally kind of mostly sorta quit pulling on it. Sometimes.
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Yeah …. don’t think I don’t yell it at beginners … and yet.
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That damned outside leg. I know it so well, and yet the potato brain strikes and that’s the first thing I forget.
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“Potato brain” is so accurate. I have it.
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Sounds like my lesson the other day 😂
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Hunters are hard 🙈
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I rely on my inside rein WAY too much. It’s a (very slow) work in progress.
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It’s a difficult habit to break for me, but turns workout so well when I let go of it
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