Friday, 6 April
Tonight Astérix provided me with an exiting lesson
. He is a peculiar horse, although he is small and nervous, he shows some stud behaviour. We found if funny hearing him calling out to Boneca, who would reply from her box, out of eyesight. He is the only gelding showing the slightest interest in Boneca (interest that is, every three weeks... Men! ), and as Francisco told us, he is not just hot air. Contrary to Chèrie's opinion of the uselessness of the infatuation Astérix and Boneca show for each other, Francisco has once caught them in the act. They were together in the paddock and Astérix proved he could still perform up to specs!
There were only two of us for the lesson, me on Astérix and a girl around my age on Lord, having a lesson without saddle. Because her handicap provided me with the perfect excuse to take it slow, we had a rather calm lesson. I posted a little in the beginning as a warm-up, passing by her several times until I just got in line with the two of them and kept it at a slower, sitting, trot. Getting Astérix close to the corners was something I had to work over the course of the entire lesson. This time I didn't waste time forcing him to the corners, I just insisted that we did a little better each time and rewarded improvements. After a while we were doing it reasonably well, with the exception of the corner near the gate, which none of the horses like to do squarely when working on a left rein - curiously they do that corner well enough when going parallel to the gate, but cut the corner when facing it. I think that when faced with the closed gate they perceive that way as "closed" and turn to circumvent it.
The lesson had nothing much to it, until we started doing side-by-side pair work, which as you know by now, I personally love. Unfortunately this time there was a bit of a problem: Lord doesn't really get along with Astérix! I had no idea about that, but Lord's posture as soon as we got into his side left no doubts. Together with Astérix's "when nervous press sideways against whatever's at hand, preferentially another horse" type of behaviour, the combination proved explosive!
Twice he caught me unprepared and managed to press into Lord as I and the other rider tried to keep them side-by-side, twice Lord found nothing funny about the proceedings. The third time Astérix leaned into Lord while we were in the middle of a corner, Lord was having none of it and kick out in reply. Astérix on his hand, even after having created the situation, was not going to leave Lord's lashing out unanswered. Before I had even realised what was happening, he had partially turned is rump into Lord and they kicked at each other. He then threw himself sideways away from Lord, forgetting that he had an unbalancing weight on his back. It felt as if a bomb had gone up between the four of us and we had been thrown away by the shock wave. Two thoughts came over my mind during those few seconds. One was an image of Astérix and me splattered all over the ground, the second was something of the kind of "Jump off clean if he goes down!". I had lost my stirrups but managed to keep vertical and balanced, even if the saddle had rotated with Astérix and I was now sitting slightly sideways. Somehow Astérix managed to recover and I managed to stay on. Fortunately Lord had not trashed about like Astérix did, so that the other student, sitting saddless and closer to the railings, managed to stay on too. Everything ended just fine but it was all quite exciting, even fun in a masochistic sort of way - just lets not do that again!
After this "incident" it was tacitly agreed by all parties involved not to continue this exercise and we proceeded to do a little canter work. After the shock and excitement we'd been through Astérix was surprisingly (or maybe not!) quiet and obedient. The canter went great, it felt comfortable and smooth - exactly what I needed to gain confidence after the difficulties experienced at other times.
The other student, tired by the work without saddle (I can definitely relate with that!), asked to finish the lesson a little early. Francisco left with her and Lord and told me to keep on working by myself if I wanted to - which, of course, I did. I knew exactly what I wanted to work on with Astérix, and started with some halt-walk, then halt-trot transitions. Since canter transitions is something I never managed that well with him I worked a little on those too.
His willingness to please (and his lack of confidence) was obvious in that after getting him to canter at a certain point of the arena, all it took was a little shift in position at that point for him to jump into a canter! After some ten minutes of this I tried a halt-canter transition... that actually worked rather nice, as Astérix was cantering (in the correct lead) with just some three or four strides in walk / trot - it felt like quite an accomplishment for the two of us!
For a "relaxing" end for such a "boring" lesson I tried cantering with my eyes closed, trying to concentrate on feeling the legs and back moving. It was rather impressive, by closing the eyes I could feel a profusion of movements I had never noticed were there. I could feel the different legs moving and the impact of the hooves, even if I could not tell them apart from each other. It was an enlightening experiment, but also a short one. Astérix was being so nice that I wanted to reward him by cutting the work short. This is all just something I'll have to concentrate on in further lessons...
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
Tonight Astérix provided me with an exiting lesson
. He is a peculiar horse, although he is small and nervous, he shows some stud behaviour. We found if funny hearing him calling out to Boneca, who would reply from her box, out of eyesight. He is the only gelding showing the slightest interest in Boneca (interest that is, every three weeks... Men! ), and as Francisco told us, he is not just hot air. Contrary to Chèrie's opinion of the uselessness of the infatuation Astérix and Boneca show for each other, Francisco has once caught them in the act. They were together in the paddock and Astérix proved he could still perform up to specs!There were only two of us for the lesson, me on Astérix and a girl around my age on Lord, having a lesson without saddle. Because her handicap provided me with the perfect excuse to take it slow
, we had a rather calm lesson. I posted a little in the beginning as a warm-up, passing by her several times until I just got in line with the two of them and kept it at a slower, sitting, trot. Getting Astérix close to the corners was something I had to work over the course of the entire lesson. This time I didn't waste time forcing him to the corners, I just insisted that we did a little better each time and rewarded improvements. After a while we were doing it reasonably well, with the exception of the corner near the gate, which none of the horses like to do squarely when working on a left rein - curiously they do that corner well enough when going parallel to the gate, but cut the corner when facing it. I think that when faced with the closed gate they perceive that way as "closed" and turn to circumvent it.The lesson had nothing much to it, until we started doing side-by-side pair work, which as you know by now, I personally love. Unfortunately this time there was a bit of a problem: Lord doesn't really get along with Astérix! I had no idea about that, but Lord's posture as soon as we got into his side left no doubts. Together with Astérix's "when nervous press sideways against whatever's at hand, preferentially another horse" type of behaviour, the combination proved explosive!
Twice he caught me unprepared and managed to press into Lord as I and the other rider tried to keep them side-by-side, twice Lord found nothing funny about the proceedings. The third time Astérix leaned into Lord while we were in the middle of a corner, Lord was having none of it and kick out in reply. Astérix on his hand, even after having created the situation, was not going to leave Lord's lashing out unanswered. Before I had even realised what was happening, he had partially turned is rump into Lord and they kicked at each other. He then threw himself sideways away from Lord, forgetting that he had an unbalancing weight on his back. It felt as if a bomb had gone up between the four of us and we had been thrown away by the shock wave. Two thoughts came over my mind during those few seconds. One was an image of Astérix and me splattered all over the ground, the second was something of the kind of "Jump off clean if he goes down!". I had lost my stirrups but managed to keep vertical and balanced, even if the saddle had rotated with Astérix and I was now sitting slightly sideways. Somehow Astérix managed to recover and I managed to stay on. Fortunately Lord had not trashed about like Astérix did, so that the other student, sitting saddless and closer to the railings, managed to stay on too. Everything ended just fine but it was all quite exciting, even fun in a masochistic sort of way - just lets not do that again
!After this "incident" it was tacitly agreed by all parties involved not to continue this exercise and we proceeded to do a little canter work. After the shock and excitement we'd been through Astérix was surprisingly (or maybe not!) quiet and obedient. The canter went great, it felt comfortable and smooth - exactly what I needed to gain confidence after the difficulties experienced at other times.
The other student, tired by the work without saddle (I can definitely relate with that!), asked to finish the lesson a little early. Francisco left with her and Lord and told me to keep on working by myself if I wanted to - which, of course, I did. I knew exactly what I wanted to work on with Astérix, and started with some halt-walk, then halt-trot transitions. Since canter transitions is something I never managed that well with him I worked a little on those too.
His willingness to please (and his lack of confidence) was obvious in that after getting him to canter at a certain point of the arena, all it took was a little shift in position at that point for him to jump into a canter! After some ten minutes of this I tried a halt-canter transition... that actually worked rather nice, as Astérix was cantering (in the correct lead) with just some three or four strides in walk / trot - it felt like quite an accomplishment for the two of us!
For a "relaxing" end for such a "boring" lesson I tried cantering with my eyes closed, trying to concentrate on feeling the legs and back moving. It was rather impressive, by closing the eyes I could feel a profusion of movements I had never noticed were there. I could feel the different legs moving and the impact of the hooves, even if I could not tell them apart from each other. It was an enlightening experiment, but also a short one. Astérix was being so nice that I wanted to reward him by cutting the work short. This is all just something I'll have to concentrate on in further lessons...
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
