Sandy is back from her well-deserved trip to Florida, so our days of 'leisure riding' are officially over. While I was in Quebec last week Sandy rode Saumur and he worked well. They have been working on canter pirouettes and fine tuning the changes and he has been a very good boy.
Imagine my surprise when Sandy in my lesson today told me that Saumur was tattling on me! Basically, he was telling her through his body. Sure enough, Sandy could feel how I rode him and this is how he 'tattled' on me. Mainly, I still have a tendency to ride him like a lower level horse, in a low frame, lots of long and low breaks. Sandy explained that while in principle this has merit, it does not help Saumur with his work in collection. He needs to build up strength to keep the frame for a longer period of time. My constantly going back to long and low is not helping.
Another key item is doing frequent transitions, which he needs and I am not really into. I mean, why bother with a transition at every letter, especially when the going is nice? :-) But again, there is logic behind it. It keeps Saumur on the aids and makes him much more responsive. Today we worked on four canter strides - walk, four canter strides - walk, and so on. Amazing how the prep work with the "1,000 transitions" set him up for it. The same is true for going to collected canter: If Saumur is listening to my aids, a squeeze of the fingers does the trick. I also still have work to do on getting my center of gravity more down in the saddle...I think tonight I'll be dreaming of the good old days of galloping and jumping in two-point cross country, not a thought of collection in mind (too busy focusing on staying on!).
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