Progress through simplicity

I had my first lesson on Indy and she was great! She seems like she matures a little more with every ride and is beginning to figure out her job. Now I can focus more on the quality of the work instead of just trying to get her around without her gawking at and avoiding everything that she thinks might be scary. She still has her three year old moments, but they are a lot less frequent.

I'm actually boarding Indy and taking lessons at a jumper barn, which I love. No, I really have no desire to jump, but I like taking lessons with a jumper trainer on young horses.

Mark, the trainer, is very patient and it's obvious that he enjoys his job. This is important to me because there is nothing worse than taking a lesson from a burnt-out, unenthusiastic trainer with no passion. Or worse, a moody one.

He started our lesson with a couple of ground poles set out, having me change the amount of strides between the poles until she was more responsive to my aids and paying attention to me. This really set the tone for the rest of the lesson and I ended up with a much more focused horse.

After moving on, we mostly worked on just getting her in a good rhythm and staying in front of my leg. When the ADD moments happen, Indy will lock onto whatever it is she decided might be frightening, put her head up, and get hollow. She backs off on the connection and gives you that "Oh crap, my horse is behind me and can go whatever direction it wants" feeling.  Mark had me be a little more insistent that she go forward. This is obviously just basics, but sometimes with young horses,  the survival instincts take over and the basics go out the door. I'm not the type of rider to kick, spur, whip, pull, or jerk a horse around to get what I want out of them. That being said, I'm also a little too tactful sometimes and he had me be more persistent without being overly aggressive.

Once she was more consistent with that, he started focusing on the connection more. She is definitely not the type to tolerate being muscled into a frame. Mark had me just focus on a steady, soft connection and not dropping my hands when she wanted to bring her head up. Simple and easy.

All in all, Indy and I both ended the lesson a little better. We were both tired, but happy.

On a side note, my wonderfully supportive fiancé took some video and pictures. It's nice to be able to see my mistakes as well as hearing about them:)

We were just calmly walking and then...

At least she's athletic...On a good note, she was over it in about three seconds and went on like absolutely nothing happened.

Getting there

Taking it one step at a time