Neeee-reeeep!

After last week's discouraging lesson and a week of rain, thunder, water outage, tendon owies, and other delights, it was good to have a good lesson again today. Da Pook was delighted to get the nod, though he needed a long free longe beforehand, complete with some of his patented dolphin dances, a fair amount of rampsnorting at Pandora who is in heat and who was in the run at ringside (but when I told her we were working, she calmly and kindly retreated to her pen and her breakfast), and a lot of demonstration that the Boa Boots were indeed an excellent choice. ( In which I love riding my Custom Pony )

I purely do love riding my Pooka. Working with him on anything really. He is such a soft horse and so very focused, and he fits me perfectly. I can get a correct position on him with minimal effort, and keeping my elbows bent is easy. All the controls are exactly where I can reach them, and while his hypersensitivity means I have to really be focused no matter what (not to mention the testosterone factor), there's this sense of symbiosis that I don't get with any other horse. Not to say it's perfect; we have our issues and sometimes we go head to head. But it's an amazing partnership.

I felt so good after I rode him (and it was still relatively cool and lovely after last night's waves of storms) that I went and fetched Camilla. She's been a bee-yotch the past few days, not at all amused to be persistently neglected. No use explaining to her that every time I line up her tack for a session, the lightning moves in and it is Not A Good Idea. Yesterday she was kicking at me out of sheer stinkiness. Today I saddled her up and brought her out, found her fairly soft for the bit work but in no shape for a ride. She was spooky, looky, and generally not up for serious work. After a bit of in-hand work, which was all about her not having enough focus to think straight, I took off the reins and we had a very nice free longe in trot and canter. Good self-control on her part, good focus, great expression and to-die-for gaits. There's nothing quite like the War Mare doing her power float around me, with every stride perfectly measured. The closest analogy really is the Imperial battle cruiser booming overhead at the beginning of Star Wars.

She didn't want to stop, which was good; and her attitude was Much improved. I gave her hay and turned her loose and fetched Pandora. By then the heat was coming up, but it wasn't so bad it wasn't workable. She was waiting for her turn and glad to get it.

Very interesting after riding Pooka, doing my homework which was to ride her the same way. She's literally twice the size, of course, and she is Really determined to push into my right seatbone, kink her neck to the left, and set rigid. It's also much harder to find her spine and get into her back; she wants to drop away or just not be there. Per Teacher's instructions, I stayed with her, experimented with various ramifications of aids, and finally got enough softness going right that I could ask for a trot. Again the goal was softness, as much straightness as she would give, and not getting into a tug of war (Elbows, dammit, Elbows!). When circles didn't seem to be having much effect, I decided to try squares--and bingo. Just what she needed. Going straight, then making the 90-degree turn, seems to make sense to her at this stage, and she doesn't try to grab the wheel and do the circle her way instead of mine. She was quite cheerful about doing her squares, lightened and softened nicely and gave me her back as well as she ever has. We were both very pleased.

Capria still needs a ride, but by the time I finished with Pandora it was nasty-hot and I was knackered. Now there's a thunderhead sitting right on top of us and it's spitting rain. Rather nice actually, in a heavy, wet, un-desert-y sort of way.

Haboob II

From janni, a really good summary of the event.