King of the Faeries: Offish

Yep. I am going to CHSA Finals! YAYYYYY!

Vinny and I will be leaving bright and earlyAug 23^rd to go compete. I am so overly excited. It should be quite the event. Big tents and vendors, beautifully braided beasts, and me in the winners circle! Hahaha, I hope that is the case at least.

Have I really not posted about any of our rides since last Friday? Holy heck.

Saturday Vinny got his feeties done. He really has been quite the brat during his pedicures. Here are some blurry pics

After that I watched D (the other trainer at the barn) teach some lessons. Once S got back with E who had just competed in a show, the three of us went to get lunch, and then headed right back to the show so that S could coach one of the gals in her Children’s Hunter/Marshall and Sterling classes. I spent a few hours at that show and then headed on home.

Sunday I got to ride Vinny later on in the afternoon. He was just okay. Very lazy. I jumped him over a tiny gate jump, and through a one-stride cross rail line. It really seems like he is starting to require more and more leg.

Yesterday was my lesson. We warmed up on our own and then S had us practice keeping our canter straight as sometimes Vinny tries to over-bend on the long sides of the arena. In between talking to S, D, and M by the in gate, we began jumping a small vertical. Vinny really makes me laugh too much. We would be trotting up to it, nice and active, with intent, and he would take a second look at it and jump it huge! I mean, come on now, this thing is not even two feet high, and literally just a brown cavaletti, and you jump it like it’s going to eat you, Vinny! Lol seriously I love this horse.

The main things we worked on with this little fence were: getting the correct distance at the canter into the fence, and continuing with straightness after the fence on the correct lead. Apparently we were drifting a little after the fence, so this took several tries to get straight. It is really hard when I *think* I’m straight, but then I hear from the gallery that I am drifting over as if I’m leg yielding him. Boo.

After some more talking and laughing, S had us go through a grid set up in the middle of the ring. The grid consisted of three bounce cross rails to a one stride cross rail.

S warned me before hand that I would need a lot of leg. This warning did not click.

Vinny refused to go down the grid several times. Finally we halfheartedly made it down once. I felt as if I was being tossed all over the place. We eventually did make down decently, I suppose. It’s hard to remain off his back and steady while still urging him along with a lot of leg. Any tips?

S is having us do another lesson on Saturday with more grid work. The last time I did a grid was several years ago, and on Homey. With Homey I literally could just sit there in a light half seat and let him go through it. Vinny is sooo much different than him. So lazy. But I think we’ll get it eventually. Grid work sure is a lot of fun though!

Tonight we will be working on lateral movement, no stirrup work, and quick changes of transition. M and I were discussing this yesterday. She said she had been working on a pattern like such: trot six steps, walk one, trot six, walk one, etc to get her horse really listening to leg cues. Sounds good to me!