Ri used to start his trotwork feeling a little dead -- dead to the leg and hand, and we didn't have anything like real trotwork till half-way through our ride.
Things are a-changing. Here is footage of some of our initial trotting after the walk-work. It's still a little stiff and sticky, but it's a different kind of stiff/sticky, what I call a hovery trot -- some suspension, but the balance is horizontal and not real supple. When I asked for more forward he flattened out, and I was getting bounced out of the tack which wasn't helping. One thing I have learned: Transitions are never wrong. I started to do transitions to break things up a bit. The transitions helped quite a bit -- It's not just Ri that needs to warm up! I find that transitions help me to relax more and open my thigh, and this frees him up to move more freely and quicker in the hind leg.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Bouncin' outta the tack
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One of my trainers used to tell me if I needed to do a hundred transitions during a ride, to go for it. You can also, instead of going all the way down to walk or halt kind of do a "hesitation" where you get Riley to almost walk and then immediately go into the forward trot again.
ReplyDeleteThat way, he will be even quicker off your leg and even better engaged. It doesn't give him time to shift his balance into walk or halt mode but simply gets him ready to shift before going on again.