HeresHoping
Well-Known Member
Bit of a background. In 2015, we were going great guns. 66% plus consistently at Novice; a crack at elementary. Doing some medium stuff at home in our lessons. She's a 15.1 Connie, ex broodmare. Willing as anything, although we wouldn't go much higher, nor beat the world. I moved up North in September 2015, and bought her, and brought her up here in Jan 2016. She had belonged to my previous yard manager who had kindly given me the ride. For the 3 months I didn't rider her, she was borrowed by a couple of teenagers who weren't that into schooling... When she got up here I was bitterly disappointed that she had no canter to speak of (like an ironing board, choppy and wholly unbalanced) was on-off lame for a few days at a time, and stiff. Vet deduced she might be getting a little arthrticky and to keep her going with a good supplement, with a view to injections if there was further deterioration. So I took her shoes off, and very slowly brought her back into work, not even thinking about schooling until the summer. She spent that summer teaching my kids to ride, so nothing serious. We sorted out saddles, teeth, etc. over winter. This year has been fantastic. She is sound, not showing any signs of deterioration or arthritis in her hocks and is moving better than ever.
We've worked hard in the school, with loads of horsey-yoga as warm up (a la Visconte Simon Cocozza) and the canter work is back on track. Still a bit unbalanced but the bend is there. She will walk canter beautifully. Likewise, halt - canter. It's coming down that is the problem. She was, to be honest, a bit uppity after canter, jigging sideways and generally getting her knickers in a twist, when I first started riding her back in 2014. But a gazillion transitions and 1000 lessons later, this was good. And it was always canter-walk that caused her to be like this. Now, though, it's canter - trot. She'll come down, and within two strides of trot, hollow and rush away. It doesn't matter if I do three strides of canter or 333 strides, it's the same. And then it's a good circle or two until I can engage her back end again. I try and do something else to take her mind off things, but it's not always successful.
Any suggestions? The vet is coming out in a couple of weeks to do teeth again, and I will ask him to give her a once over. I know I desperately need a good instructor, but I can only afford a decent lesson about once per month and I have been a bit strapped :redface3::redface3:. But if anyone has any suggestions in the meantime, I'd be very grateful.
Thank you.
We've worked hard in the school, with loads of horsey-yoga as warm up (a la Visconte Simon Cocozza) and the canter work is back on track. Still a bit unbalanced but the bend is there. She will walk canter beautifully. Likewise, halt - canter. It's coming down that is the problem. She was, to be honest, a bit uppity after canter, jigging sideways and generally getting her knickers in a twist, when I first started riding her back in 2014. But a gazillion transitions and 1000 lessons later, this was good. And it was always canter-walk that caused her to be like this. Now, though, it's canter - trot. She'll come down, and within two strides of trot, hollow and rush away. It doesn't matter if I do three strides of canter or 333 strides, it's the same. And then it's a good circle or two until I can engage her back end again. I try and do something else to take her mind off things, but it's not always successful.
Any suggestions? The vet is coming out in a couple of weeks to do teeth again, and I will ask him to give her a once over. I know I desperately need a good instructor, but I can only afford a decent lesson about once per month and I have been a bit strapped :redface3::redface3:. But if anyone has any suggestions in the meantime, I'd be very grateful.
Thank you.