walk work

I think Lucy was a bit sore from her dentist visit yesterday because she shook her head when I picked up contact and seemed to get very worried. As a result, we did just walk work on the buckle yesterday. Frank had talked about lengthening and shortening the stride with just my seat in our lesson and I practiced that. She's very sensitive in her back and quickly caught on to what I was trying to do. I had her extend for a few strides by tilting my pelvis back, and driving her forward with my seat bones. Once she got a few good extended strides in, I would gradually tip my pelvis forward, and stop the forward energy from going beyond my seat, thereby shortening the stride significantly.

I also worked on steering her with my seat and balance, which she did so well with. I would keep my upper body tall, but rotate my pelvis just slightly and look where I wanted her to go, and she would circle without any contact with her mouth whatsoever. What a clever girl.

There were a couple of poles set up in the ring and she has a tendency to do the baby wiggles when approaching poles, so we walked over them a number of times each direction (again without any contact with her mouth) and I practiced keeping her straight between my legs. The first couple of times she still tried to wiggle out of it, so I had to guide her a bit with the reins, but only lightly.

We also did a ton of stretching :)

This weekend's forecast promises 2-4" of rain so the horses will be in all weekend, which means I need to make a shavings run!