Lessons

After Expo, Ashke got the next two days off, which was great because I was really exhausted. That weekend, which would be exhausting anyway, was combined with our annual Spring Forward moment. I was still fighting a feeling of overall weariness when I showed up for my ride on Wednesday. Amanda told me how incredibly proud she was of Ashke and I and then said "now you get to work on the hard stuff."

I might have gulped a bit when I asked what the hard stuff was going to be. She said, "half-pass, pirouettes, flying changes."

Yeah, all of that.

I have to say that one of the things that has become very obvious to me in the past week is that the injection in Ashke's right hock has made a world of difference in his movement, his focus and his willingness to learn all of the new things we are learning. I was struggling to ride, so Amanda got up for about fifteen minutes to work on the canter to the right. He got better with her up, and then we switched out again so I could try. I felt like a piece of hot wire pulled through a screen trying to finish up that lesson.

The next time I rode, we did this:

That was our second attempt at the canter half pass

He was having a hard time maintaining the bend. We tried it in the other direction.

Ashke wasn't sure at all what I was trying to get him to do and we didn't get the bend.

But he's trying.

Finally, a couple of solid steps to the left.

On Sunday, we rode outside and I am waiting on the photos Amanda's mom took of us. Ashke felt amazing that day. We were riding the canter serpentine with transitions through the walk, one handed, and one of the women watching said we were really close to being able to do a canter pirouette. We worked on a lot of different things, including the canter half-pass, which Amanda said he was finally putting more than two or three steps together in a row.

We are going to work on the flying change on Wednesday, with Amanda showing him what we want, and then I will try to duplicate the movement. His right hind has gotten so much stronger since the last time we tried, that I have high hopes.