Saturday's Lesson / Show Prep

Lesson

We made a lot of progress in Saturday's lesson. I felt much more organized as a rider. We spent a lot of time working on my position, especially at the sitting trot and canter. I feel at least like i'm getting better, but I'm still far away from what would think of as being a good seat. The hardest thing is taking all of the separate components of good equitation and getting it all to work together in harmony. For example, I've found that when I get really focused on my hands, I will hold my body away from the saddle and get thrown off the correct posting diagonal. I have to really work on my self awareness, that will be a good project for when I am hacking. I know how to post correctly, but riding hunters I was never called upon to do quite so many things at once. We spent a lot of time working on the canter transition, trying to fix the issue where Werther just wants to trot faster instead of actually canter. We did a lot of half halts, and really worked on setting Werther up, so he could not get away with getting into that fast trot and throwing me off balance. We got some good transitions out of him, but Werther's facial expression looks like someone who is about to be tortured. I think as soon as Werther figures out I'm not going to hang on his face, that will get better. 

Show prep

I got the two dvds I order from the USDF the levels DVD and one called "Lower Levels with Olympians". My two favorite lectures from that DVD were Hilda Gurney and Robert Dover. They seemed to break things down into small enough particles where I could actually understand. The levels DVD is also helpful, I have a test booklet so I can follow along, but I wish they had an audio track which just listed the movements.

Shopping!

I went to the tack store after my lesson. They are ordering a Kentucky show coat for me, it is really pretty navy blue with a velvet navy collar and gold buttons. (They can't make me give up all color yet!) I think it will look really good with Werther's deep chestnut coat, and the cut of the jacket actually fits over my chest! I tried the Pikeur and RJ Classic as well, no way the Pikeur was going to fit. I also bought new metal stirrup pads, really nice ones that screw in to the iron. I made a list on Dover of all the rest of the show stuff I need to get, now it is just a matter of writing the check.