So Mike got on Elle first to loosen her up for me. He brought her around, got her sensitive to the leg and reins, and also worked on keeping her in the canter when she wanted to stop. Then he also showed me something else to do with her. Since day one, I've known how to disengage her hind end - essentially making it so that she has to move her hind end in order to stop from spinning out. This is a good exercise to know you can put her feet where you want, but it's also the part of a one rein stop that works - you make it so that they have to keep their feet underneath them, or they won't be able to balance.
Today, though, we learned about engaging the hind end - that is, making her track up with her inside hind to propel herself forward. You do this on a small, but forward circle, where you're giving her some contact on the reins. It'll get better as the hind end gets stronger.
I got on and we did a bunch of slow work, because she wasn't a ball of energy. Once she seemed like she was getting a little bored with that, we switched it up to something else so that she would keep learning. Horses are just like kids in that they need to be interested in the material or they're not going to be in the place where they can absorb.
We started with getting her to respond right off of my leg to go to the trot. That was done by using the whip and letting her trot, then using just my leg and seeing what kind of response we got. It went well.
Then, Mike wanted me to really open her up and gallop her around a little bit. And guess what? She was tired, and done with working, and when I used the whip to tap her, she bucked. Two different times! But it was ok, in fact it was great. Because of how forward she was going, she couldn't give them her all, got unbalanced, and seemed to realize it was easier and more comfortable if you just stayed in stride.
And so I took that, rode her forward, and cantered ALL the way around the ring! Yahoo!! I don't know if I should be excited about all this, but I am!
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