Hello everyone,
With my vacations rapidly approaching I had to finish up the delayed chronicles in the little time I had available, so they are a bit short, I'm afraid.
I'll be going to Canada next Thursday, no work for me in Wednesday, so this week's chronicles will have to wait a month until I return and post them. I am going to have a lesson late evening Wednesday - having to catch the plane in the following morning is no excuse not to ride
!
Friday, 1 June
We had a rather quiet lesson today. There were only two of us instead of the more usual four or five, so we had more "private" attention from Francisco. The other student was riding Chèrie for the second time, and being used to slower, easier horses, got most of the attention. I can't complain, though... armed with the previous comments on the problem of my hands with Mefisto, and my recent experiments with the seat, I had a very productive lesson.
Before I could start the lesson, I first had to get Mefisto ready, and as usual, he was not particularly helpful. He does stand still for you to saddle him, he doesn't fidget when you do the girth and doesn't try to take his head away when you try to bridle him. Getting him to open his mouth and take the bit is a whole different story however! I had half my hand inserted sideways in his mouth (after the thumb proved ineffective) and was considering getting a crowbar, when he finally relented and accepted the bit.
Most of the lesson was pretty standard, the usual work at the three gaits. Circles in a right rein still take the best of the two of us. We both prefer working to the left so the problem is compounded. I did come to the conclusion that a lot of my difficulty steams from a seat that, if comfortable, isn't as stable as it should be.
The lesson was to end with the best riding moment I experienced so far. Francisco decided to finish with some solo work, so being first in line I was told to get into trot. This great moment started bad enough with Mefisto ignoring my requests - something odd, as he is always available to trot or canter. I had to progressively increase my aids and it took us some twenty metres to finally leave the walk. Such a start didn't presage a good exercise, but as Francisco stood in the middle calling the shots we did everything smoothly, calmly and with light aids. We were told to make transitions between walk, trot and canter at the places Francisco would say. With did circles and changes of rein, very good (for me, that is) transitions into canter, circles in canter and changes of rein (with a couple of steps in trot to change leads). The canter felt really nice and relaxed and we finished with a canter-halt-canter transition. This last exercise was the only one that could have been better. Told to do it at C, and expecting Mefisto to take some time to stop from canter, I started to tense my seat and set my hand a good way before the letter. We ended up stopping more than two meters short of the proper place because of that.
All in all it was by far the best note in which to finish a lesson!
Wednesday, 6 June
Today I had the possibility of doing something I was itching to do for some time now - ride Pampilho again! Before I could do so, though, we had to take the horses in. As usual Ice went the wrong way "Hey look! There goes Ice the wrong way, what a surprise!", but when I went to get him he came back, harassed by the dogs, and ran straight to his box. I then went inside to find Lotus inside Mefisto's box, with his head outside, while it's rightful owner waited patiently in front of the box's door. While this face-off took place Rezinga (the pony) was having a "conversation" with Gladiador. I made do as traffic policeman and got everyone to their own boxes and closed up.
Riding Pampilho was pretty much a rehash of the previous attempt. He tends to race about the place, he races to catch the other horses, he races to get in front of them and he races to get away from them. At least he has a nice trot and canter to sit - when they are not too fast!
Working solo with him (as we did) is complicated. When he is faced in the direction of the others he speeds up suddenly, he calms down again when facing away. That means that, not only had I to make an effort to calm him, I had to increase that effort when we were facing the others...
Friday, 8 June
Another lesson with Mefisto, there really has been a lot of them. I'm getting to know him better and better, I know what the two of us together have more difficulty with and I know a lot better how he reacts.
Today was no exception to the usual lessons with Mefisto. There was no "magical" moment but nevertheless, on the whole, it went just fine. Before we started we had to paint the horse's hooves with a dark stuff (forgot to ask what that was) and Mefisto stood there like a statue while I did the job (with another student holding him, of course!). Besides the usual exercises we did lots of canter... unfortunately I have to admit that I was not in the best of days for it. Sitting Mefisto's canter is, at best, difficult for me and today I was definitely not at my best.
There were three of us tonight so Francisco got us to do side-by-side work in a trio. Let's just say that we were not particularly regular, shall we? We managed to do changes of rein and even a circle, but we were wildly spaced most of the time, and not quite in line...
We finished the lesson with some leg yielding. Out of the three I was the only one who had done it (done in a very loose sense of the word), it was something new to the other two, who did just fine after a couple of tries.
As usual Mefisto and I did good to the right (yielding to the left leg) but we choked completely to the left. The second time it was better but there is still a lot of work to be done there!
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
With my vacations rapidly approaching I had to finish up the delayed chronicles in the little time I had available, so they are a bit short, I'm afraid.
I'll be going to Canada next Thursday, no work for me in Wednesday, so this week's chronicles will have to wait a month until I return and post them. I am going to have a lesson late evening Wednesday - having to catch the plane in the following morning is no excuse not to ride
!Friday, 1 June
We had a rather quiet lesson today. There were only two of us instead of the more usual four or five, so we had more "private" attention from Francisco. The other student was riding Chèrie for the second time, and being used to slower, easier horses, got most of the attention. I can't complain, though... armed with the previous comments on the problem of my hands with Mefisto, and my recent experiments with the seat, I had a very productive lesson.
Before I could start the lesson, I first had to get Mefisto ready, and as usual, he was not particularly helpful. He does stand still for you to saddle him, he doesn't fidget when you do the girth and doesn't try to take his head away when you try to bridle him. Getting him to open his mouth and take the bit is a whole different story however! I had half my hand inserted sideways in his mouth (after the thumb proved ineffective) and was considering getting a crowbar
, when he finally relented and accepted the bit.Most of the lesson was pretty standard, the usual work at the three gaits. Circles in a right rein still take the best of the two of us. We both prefer working to the left so the problem is compounded. I did come to the conclusion that a lot of my difficulty steams from a seat that, if comfortable, isn't as stable as it should be.
The lesson was to end with the best riding moment I experienced so far. Francisco decided to finish with some solo work, so being first in line I was told to get into trot. This great moment started bad enough with Mefisto ignoring my requests - something odd, as he is always available to trot or canter. I had to progressively increase my aids and it took us some twenty metres to finally leave the walk. Such a start didn't presage a good exercise, but as Francisco stood in the middle calling the shots we did everything smoothly, calmly and with light aids. We were told to make transitions between walk, trot and canter at the places Francisco would say. With did circles and changes of rein, very good (for me, that is) transitions into canter, circles in canter and changes of rein (with a couple of steps in trot to change leads). The canter felt really nice and relaxed and we finished with a canter-halt-canter transition. This last exercise was the only one that could have been better. Told to do it at C, and expecting Mefisto to take some time to stop from canter, I started to tense my seat and set my hand a good way before the letter. We ended up stopping more than two meters short of the proper place because of that
.All in all it was by far the best note in which to finish a lesson!
Wednesday, 6 June
Today I had the possibility of doing something I was itching to do for some time now - ride Pampilho again! Before I could do so, though, we had to take the horses in. As usual Ice went the wrong way "Hey look! There goes Ice the wrong way, what a surprise!", but when I went to get him he came back, harassed by the dogs, and ran straight to his box. I then went inside to find Lotus inside Mefisto's box, with his head outside, while it's rightful owner waited patiently in front of the box's door. While this face-off took place Rezinga (the pony) was having a "conversation" with Gladiador. I made do as traffic policeman and got everyone to their own boxes and closed up.
Riding Pampilho was pretty much a rehash of the previous attempt. He tends to race about the place, he races to catch the other horses, he races to get in front of them and he races to get away from them. At least he has a nice trot and canter to sit - when they are not too fast!
Working solo with him (as we did) is complicated. When he is faced in the direction of the others he speeds up suddenly, he calms down again when facing away. That means that, not only had I to make an effort to calm him, I had to increase that effort when we were facing the others...
Friday, 8 June
Another lesson with Mefisto, there really has been a lot of them. I'm getting to know him better and better, I know what the two of us together have more difficulty with and I know a lot better how he reacts.
Today was no exception to the usual lessons with Mefisto. There was no "magical" moment but nevertheless, on the whole, it went just fine. Before we started we had to paint the horse's hooves with a dark stuff (forgot to ask what that was) and Mefisto stood there like a statue while I did the job (with another student holding him, of course!). Besides the usual exercises we did lots of canter... unfortunately I have to admit that I was not in the best of days for it. Sitting Mefisto's canter is, at best, difficult for me and today I was definitely not at my best.
There were three of us tonight so Francisco got us to do side-by-side work in a trio. Let's just say that we were not particularly regular, shall we? We managed to do changes of rein and even a circle, but we were wildly spaced most of the time, and not quite in line
...We finished the lesson with some leg yielding. Out of the three I was the only one who had done it (done in a very loose sense of the word
), it was something new to the other two, who did just fine after a couple of tries.As usual Mefisto and I did good to the right (yielding to the left leg) but we choked completely to the left. The second time it was better but there is still a lot of work to be done there!
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
