Lifting the next weight

On Saturday I had my first lesson on Rodders with dressage trainer and rider Samantha Brown. It was great.

I was so excited to have a lesson after ages of skintness that I got up early to wash Rodney's socks and tail.

All the hack from the past six months took a while to shift but he did look rather spiffy, if not slightly irritated by my spurt of enthusiasm and shampoo.

Look at that tummy! Shouldn't horses slim down in the winter?

He was very good in his lesson and tried extremely hard, even though we were both a bit knackered. My thigh muscles afterwards felt like they'd been filled with concrete!
The key things to work on are:

1. Consistent, proper transitions. Rodney needs to move off the leg and I need to maintain a contact and ride through the transition.

2. Not zooming down the longside. Self explanatory really!

3. I need to tilt my pelvis back in canter and glue my bum to the saddle.

4. We need to stay forward in the walk.

5. Building stamina. Rodney thinks cantering more than two 20m circles is excessive and I need to get fit enough to persuade him otherwise. Sam referred to this as 'lifting the next weight' which I really liked. Lying on the sofa eating sweets is now banned.

It was a great lesson and I felt really motivated by it so there will be lots of practicing going on before our next one in a fortnight's time.

Happy horsing everyone, I hope your spring training is going well x