Adventures with Cavaletti and more

This past Thursday (the 29th) marked my third session with Emmy. In case anyone is curious as to how I found her, her owners (aka "parents") responded to an ad I had on Craigslist for catch riding. They originally wanted me to train her in western pleasure, and I told them that while I have no experience in that discipline, I would love to do some basic work with her and see where we can go from there. Since my interest is Dressage, Emmy's mom thought it would be neat for me to take her to some schooling shows this summer. So, that is our primary goal: to do a decent Training-level test by the end of the season.

Fortunately, Emmy has a great disposition (although she can be stubborn--but how many horses aren't? ;-)) But she is pretty much a joy to work with, which makes riding her that much more fun. She is great on the ground, too--with the exception of refusing to stand still when you try to mount her. We are working on this by teaching her to flex laterally via one rein, which she is slowly--but surely--getting the hang of.

Emmy has two major issues under saddle right now. Being an ex-Saddleseat horse, (which I am somewhat familiar with, back in the Dark Ages before my conversion to dressage) she was trained to trot around the arena "like Speedy Gonzales" as her Mom aptly described it, with her head up in the air. At the risk of sounding elitist, this is the opposite of what is classically correct. I have to include a side note here that I can no longer watch any English Pleasure, Park, etc. class without shaking my head and wondering how people can possibly want their horses to go like that. I understand that the conformation of NSH's lends itself to the high head carriage, but there are also quite a few, along with Arabians, Saddlebreds, and Morgans--competing successfully in dressage. Apparently a "trainer" told Emmy's mom that Emmy couldn't "do" dressage because of her breed. ...ANY sound horse can do Training Level!!!!! It's just w/t/c with circles! *gets off soapbox*

Anyway, back to Emmy. So far, we've been working on a lot of quick w/t/w transitions to get her off her forehand. When I say "quick", I mean every four steps or so. When she's above the bit, she sometimes resists coming back to trot, and I have to half-halt HARD. I don't like doing that, but what's that saying--"as little force as necessary, as much as required"? She's a fairly agile little mare (that's what I like about Arabs and Arab crosses--soo much easier to maneuver than the big honking European Warmbloods. Sorta like my Civic compared to a Yukon ;-)) but regardless, I like to do shallow serpentines to get her bending. This is somewhat of a challenge since she does not understand lateral leg aids, so I have to move her off the rail and back with my seat and reins only. I guess this is good experience for me to pay more attention to my seat!

Lastly, I have to say my personal favorite exercise is cavaletti (not sure what hers is--I would venture to say walking on a loose rein.) My all-time favorite trainer, Dr. Reiner Klimke, RIP, was a strong advocate of cavaletti for the way they help with getting a horse off its forehand and pushing from the hindquarters (HQ.) Next to hill work, which is usually not much of an option in Ohio, cavaletti are probably the most effective tool for that purpose. Initially, Emmy tried to dodge the cavaletti ("But it's sooo hard, surrogate-mom!") but moving them against the arena wall solved the problem. Apparently, trying to escape to the inside was not as fun as scooting between the cavaletti and the wall at the very last second.

Up next tomorrow: pics and video clips. I can't wait to read some constructive comments from my fellow dressage aficionados. :-)

ETA: pictures from today, June 2nd. I didn't feel like wasting page space on another post because we did essentially the same work today, with the exception of cavaletti on an arc. She did very well--we even did a bit of cantering--WOW what a dream. Smooth, but has a nice jump.

Also, her mom informed me that there is a graded hill accessible to the property. Yes!!!!! No doubt, we will be taking advantage of that A.S.A.P.

Sorry the pics are not the greatest quality. I still have not figured out how to use the flash on my camera, and it appears some dust got on the lens. I did get some video clips taken, but they won't load for some reason. I'll post them to YouTube later and post the link here.