Finally, it’s Friday. We’ve been crawling through this week, tired to the bone, making these horrible commutes through the snow and ice, waiting for it to be Friday.
I had a reasonable lesson last night, considering that Kip hasn’t been worked much due to the weather, and has been shut up in his stall. At the end of it, as an experiment, Sally had Jane canter him to see how he went. She thinks that my problem is that I’m not physically strong enough to collect him up enough so that he can balance enough to canter. I’m not sure, myself. I think he just tries to bully me. Jane did get him to canter a couple of times, although if she shifted position at all he would break back into trot. He’s so unbalanced; Sally was saying “Go, go, go! Trust that he’s not going to fall or run into the wall – I know it feels as though he will, but he hasn’t done it yet!” Hahaha…I just don’t have the guts to do that. He bucked a few times, but I think that was the canter “whee!” factor more than resistance.
Work has been tough…too many code changes in too short a period of time, no time to test. Not fun.
Anyway, I’ll do more of an update this weekend.
a ‘hurrah’ for a good lesson, all things considered :) between the ljs of those in England, I get nothing but an impression of much ice, cold, and other snow unhappiness (except for one entry about flirting with snowballs). Sounds overly cold and unpleasant *shiver*
Good luck with Kip’s canter… if you just get it once, you might fall in love with it enough to keep going, no matter how difficult :) I know Ally’s canter was like that once we got there (his reaction was to stop too, any time he got unbalanced. Our first trot ever involved him turning into a statue of ‘what the heck was THAT?’ afterwards)
That’s really interesting – Kip was exactly like that. Trot was difficult because if I even tipped my head forward, he would stop dead. I’ve never ridden a young horse who did that. Given that, my trainer says that he should have a gorgeous canter once he strengthens up and balances himself…and I get more confidence in his ability to stay on his feet. ;)
The weather here REALLY sucks right now. :(