Improving Indy

*I didn't have anyone around to take pictures of my lesson, so you get pics of JL riding her. Of course no one was there to document it when she is going better than she ever has. You'll just have to trust me ;)

I mentioned about having JL get on Indy last week. In short, the ride started off pretty rocky. Indy was resistant and I watched, slightly humiliated, by how big of a witch she can be when she wants to. That's what trainer rides are there for though. JL patiently kept asking her and disciplined her when she needed it. He was insistent and he kept with her until she gave it up and expected her to go correctly, not just tolerating getting her around there (like I have a tendency to do). The corrections came from him doing what he needed to get her stepping underneath herself with impulsion in the hind end. Watching JL's responses to all of her antics gave me a lot of tools to use and a better idea of what I should be expecting from her. By the end of the ride she was beginning to understand, gave up fighting, and started to go really well!

    You can see that she wasn't quite where we wanted in the pictures, but she is starting to get there.

He has me putting draw reins on her, which I am not normally a big fan of. However, I trust him and we aren't using them to force the frame. They are there for those moments when she does grab the bit and pulls up while blindly drifting in the opposite direction that you want with her nose pointed to the sky or starts flipping her head, or does anything else to cause me to lose control. They're a back up when nothing else is working and I think I might die.

After JL rode her, I had two good rides on Indy in a row. Yeah, that's never happened before and I always dreaded riding her after the "good one". The first one she tried me, but I did what JL did with her and she gave up the fight pretty quickly. The second ride, there was even less resistance. We were actually working together and she was trying harder to understand what I wanted rather than spending all of her effort trying to avoid what I was asking (she definitely gets the fight from her dam, Winnetou's goal in life was to please his rider). I figured I better take a lesson on her while things were good.

I didn't lunge her. After his ride on her, JL said that my time would be better spent doing the ground excercises that he showed me with her. Fine with me, I absolutely hate lunging even if it does have it's uses. I did the ground work and got on. Indy walked off immediately and on the bit when I asked her to. Considering that she used to walk off half-assed in every direction but forward, this is a big deal. I won't go into every detail of the lesson, but here is what we focused on:

1. Creating impulsion in the hind end with my leg while keeping a good rhythm rather than me using it to send her running forward on her forehand. 

2. Bending around my inside leg and getting her to step under more with her inside hind.

3. Keeping her in a slight shoulder-fore for straightness.

4. Not letting my hands move and asking more with my leg when she gets fussy and resistant.

5. Keeping her stepping under herself and not coming above the bit in the halt.

6. Leg yielding back and forth between the quarter line and the rail.

7. Leg yielding from a 15-20 meter circle.

8. Slight lengthenings in the trot, focusing on keeping the rhythm while lengthening and coming back(Indy actually does this better than Beefheart).

9. JL and I also talked about knowing how far to push and when to stop so that she doesn't get sour. This shouldn't be a problem since I'm more likely to not push enough.

JL said that Indy is becoming much more balanced (we actually did some pretty good serpentines where she didn't fall out or start fussing when I changed the bend) and that he liked that she showed more suspension when we asked for the trot lengthenings. He seemed pleased with her and I was ecstatic! I finally feel like we are getting somewhere instead of just getting around. I'm spending more time worrying about the actual training than wondering if today will be the day that she kills me. Finally, a relationship is building and we are starting to trust each other. Indy is starting to focus more, not gawking at everything in sight (she still looks some, but is a lot less reactive). The improvement in the last week alone has been pretty remarkable! I am truly beginning to enjoy riding her!