Learning to Sit

I finally got to have a lesson with Lisa yesterday, but sadly it still contained no jumps. She broke her back coming off a young horse, so she is limited right now. We trailered to a near by farm with an indoor, which Roscoe thought had lots of interesting things to look at. It took a bit before he settled into actual work. This was the first Lisa has seen him, except for cavaletti in October, since the camp he attended last February. He certainly has come so far in that time.

She wanted him to work on bending his body and moving into the rein without his flashy movement and in a longer frame. The fact that he can shorten will come in handy later in his career. To the left his kink in his neck was out in full force. Lisa believes it is how he balances himself. Once he is actually stepping under with his hind end and moving off my inside leg, the kink goes away. He made me work hard for it though.

We moved into canter work which surprisingly started out without me carrying a whip. Roscoe picked up right lead at large. That was okay with him. Then she had me put him on a smaller circle and have him sit, slow and push. I had to let him break rather than run him forward. Then set him up again. The left was tougher for both of us. We both ran out of steam, but we did get some canter work completed. I have to get tough and raise the bar on my expectations. Bad transitions are not allowed. That's one thing I like about Lisa, she pushes me. She believes he has the potential to go far in dressage. She even mentioned FEI Pony classes.

This is an abbreviated write up, but if you have time you can watch the lesson. Sometimes I have to pinch myself that he belongs to me. I have never ridden higher than 1-1, but he may push me higher. I still owe him some jumps though...
And check out Pony Express for a Roeckl glove give away :)