Time flies - when you spend your weekend with horses

The weekend was chock full with activities. Saturday I got up at 4:30 a.m. (!) to watch Judy’s lesson with Jan Ebeling. Due to Jan’s travel schedule, the clinic started at 6:15 a.m. Well, at that time of the day I had the auditor’s section to myself. It was important for me to see Jan and his work with Judy, as she works closely with him and naturally this has a ‘trickle down effect’ into her own teachings.

 

Jan is a very soft spoken, kind and laid back clinician. I enjoyed watching and listening. His comments were easy to assimilate, like: “firm muscles, soft joints”. He used shoulder-fore a lot for half-passes, changes, etc. The riders I watched were all upper level, and I have to admit to some pangs of envy when I saw straight, clean lines of flying changes (my nemesis).

 

Later the morning I lifted my frozen body out of the chair to drive home and get my boys worked. JP and I decided on a trailride, by then the sun had come through and it was a nice first day of fall. Remy was a bit of a brat, he sure is starting to test his boundaries. Thankfully we didn’t have any major disagreements, and finished well.

Sunday dawned way too early for my taste, but then: horses to ride, lessons to take! Saumur and Remy got to make the trip to Judy’s for our lessons. I rode Saumur outside, despite blustering winds. He was good, me… same old, same old – those darn rounded shoulders! We focused on keeping him in the correct frame, neither to low nor too high. Still struggled with the flying changes to the right. He doesn’t bring his right hind all the way through (always the issue) and the straightness needs to be improved.

When it was Remy’s turn somebody out of sight but within ear shot had started to rev up power tools, which Remy in turn used as an excuse to play on the longe line. It seemed more prudent to move to the indoor for the riding part. Starting out Remy was fussing and not paying attention. We worked on shoulder fore, leg yields, and then shoulder in. Judy encouraged me to continue even when things got dicey, instead of going to a walk break. “He has to earn his walk break”. Key is to keep moving Remy forward, and having my legs on all the time. As soon as he gets fussy in the bridle put the legs on, less rein. As Judy pointed out, one key difference in my horses is that Saumur would never try to consciously upset me, while Remy full well tests the waters and doesn’t worry too much about the consequences. We finished with some nice shoulder ins, and Remy ended up in a lovely frame.

By the time we were back home it was time to take the dogs and Teddy for their run, then on to cleaning the house. Ugh! Window cleaning! Amazing how ‘motivating’ the upcoming visit of houseguests can be. Antje and Axel, my former babysitter and her husband, will be visiting us this week. Very exciting, it’s their first trip to the US. And, needless to say, it’s been ages since she babysat me J!