This morning I woke up just in time to go for my riding lesson, when I got there I got to work on grooming Gatsby and I was amazed to see how shiny he was. He looked so clean. When I went to tacking him up we decided that we were going to make a few changes. First of all we took away his martingale we might use it when jumping him but for now when doing flat work we aren't going to use it. We then changed the bit, I can't remember what bit he had got in before, I think it was a gag. But then we put him in a snaffle with a lozenge joint.
As soon as I got on him the difference was amazing. He was forward and responsive and I was still managing to almost get him in an outline so I was happy with the work that we were doing. As soon as I asked him to warm up and stretched he dropped straight in to working long and low and it felt great. He was really swinging in the walk and it felt so nice to not constantly be putting my leg on to get him more active. We all noticed the difference straight away. When I picked up the contact I found that I was almost getting him in an outline straight away but I wasn't pushing it quite enough. I was still moving my hands to much so was blocking him from going in to an outline, but we are getting there! We then moved on to the trot and he was so much more forward than he has been, I was amazed by it I only needed the slightest bit of leg and I could feel him moving instantly better and that he was actually putting his back end underneath him.
When it got to half way through we played the swapping game. I got off Gatsby and Jaimieleigh got off Rascal and we switched horses. Even though there isn't much difference height wise inbetween Gatsby and Rascal, Rascal does feel a lot lower to the ground and his saddle makes me ache more because every muscle is where it's supposed to be. I didn't do to much trot work as I was starting to really ache but I worked on doing shoulder in and leg-yield with Rascal it amazed me how easily I was finding the right buttons to press to get him to do what I wanted him to do. He really helps me to understand what I need to do on Gatsby, even if it means on Gatsby that I need to over exaggerate the movement so that it's clearer and understands him more. When we'd finished we cooled the horses down and let them stretch out and we talked about the differences in the two horses. We also came to the conclusion that Gatsby would be so much better if he had a saddle that was like Rascals.
I've got some pictures but I haven't put them on my laptop yet so I will post them tomorrow.
Until Next Time
A Girl With A Dream
Can't wait to see pictures!
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