Riding At The New Barn

Katai loves looking at herself
I have to admit that I like to admire her as well

Today was my third day (I think) riding at the new barn and my second ride in my new saddle. I LOVE the new saddle. It's just making me more and more happy every time I ride in it. It just puts me in a much better place than my old saddle and I can tell that Katai likes it. Plus, today I cantered in it and with the small shims I'm using it didn't shift forward at all!

My main goal for this ride was to work on my posting. I found this amazing video that was really helpful for my understanding of how to post correctly. It's almost exactly what L has told me to do but explained in a different way that somehow made more sense to me.

 

At any rate I basically just focused on doing this during my ride today. It always has been VERY hard for me to post at a consistent temp and not just go with the horse. Jane is a huge classical music fan so when I told her that I just follow along with the tempo because of being in an orchestra and needing to follow a tempo for so many years as a cellist she told me that I needed to be the conductor. True haha but easier said than done.

Focusing on really doing an Up-Down-Up-Down-Up-Down rather than U.Down-U.Down-U.Down was good but very, very tough. I did make some progress but I need many more rides like this to get anywhere near being competent at it. I was really happy with myself though and pleased with my progress because it was easily the closest I've gotten to doing what I'm supposed to. Funny how that also makes Katai's job easier.

At first she was very resistant and didn't want anything to do with me controlling her tempo at the trot. It didn't help that she'd had an e/o day schedule this past week and it was really cool this morning. She's also still kind of feeling off and I think she's just a little tight and sore through her muscles. Who knows what kind of running around she's been doing as she meets her new neighbors.

My pony would win all of the gold at the mugging olympics

However, after just focusing on myself and making sure that I really was posting correctly she sneeze/snorted a few times and seemed to let go of some of the tension. Later, once we were cantering in the second direction she really sneeze/snorted several times in a row and then felt much better. I'm also going to schedule her a massage, as mentioned, for this month so I think that will be great for her as well.

Despite her being resistant and just tight today I'm really happy at how far I've come as a rider and how I'm able to get her to a good place every ride even if it takes some time. That wasn't always the case and I feel like my effectiveness as a rider is so much better after all of my work with L.