It has been a long road with Kasane’s various leg issues and our lesson today felt like a triumph over all of those things. She was bouncy, had hang time in her trot, picked up her canter leads really well. She just felt great. It was one of our most exciting lessons just for the sheer joy of riding her. My mom was there and thankfully recorded some snippets of our lessons.
Kasane’s lesson
This snippet is my favorite because Kasane gets big and bouncy at the trot. She got big and had so much impulsion. You can hear my instructor say “Bouncy, baby, bounce!” And yes, that’s me laughing several times at the amazing feel of her movement after everything we came through.
And some of our canter work, which has been progressing by leaps and bounds. Kasane has the strength now to be straight at the canter instead of cantering with her rump to the inside. It’s all of this dressage as physical therapy that has made a huge difference. I don’t think I have ever considered Kasane fully out of rehab. It’s more like a continuous scale where we do strengthening and suppling to help us get to that next level.
I always hear my instructor saying “Loop the rein, loop it, loop the rein!” meaning support Kasane with the outside rein and holder her there with your seat. Give the inside rein as a reward. Super hard for someone who has been nervous about cantering. But not anymore.
For comparison, here is one of our lessons last year on July 7, 2018. The trot is so much less together and that canter. Oof. That canter. I am so much in her way. That lesson was ridden in the Schleese Obrigado, which helped me a lot more than the Fryxo Lux dressage saddle I had been riding in. However, things took off when I got the Dynamic Dressage this past April. So much more confident in my seat now then I was in this video.
Breezy’s lesson
This was Breezy’s first lesson with my instructor. I was a little nervous because up until this lesson, I was the only one doing any training with Breezy. For the most part, she was excellent and her training was farther along then my instructor expected. These are good things.
The video that I have of Breezy’s lessons is over 20 minutes long, so I’m not going to post it here. We worked on walk and trot. There were times when Breezy didn’t want to go in a straight line and we talked about that. She did go in a straight line. She’s a really good girl. She’s just trying to see what she can get away with and where the boundaries are.
Overall, she was great. By the end of our lesson, she has a lovely fluid trot at a steady tempo and was moving off my legs lightly. Such a good girl. She’s come a long way in a short time.
Next lesson, I may actually canter her. We shall see.
