A Tad Distracted

I can trot mum, shall we canter now?

Lesson on Saturday was great, as usual, although Santana was somewhat distracted and on his toes the whole time.  It started when I tried carrying the schooling whip in my left hand.  He really doesn't like it and thinks I've suddenly picked up a hungry lion or something.  When I change it back to my right hand its okay again.  But I think this set the standard for the whole lesson and a few times he tried to dart off at the slightest whim.

He wasn't dropping into a contact as easily as he had on the last two lessons although he try.



We had some lovely impulsion for most of the lesson and he enjoyed some pole work down the centre line.  This seemed to concentrate his mind a little and I had to push him over the poles to keep him going.

We did some cantering which I found quite hard work as he was getting tired by this time.  Along with thinking about where my hands were, where my legs were and listening to my instructor telling me to sit back, left shoulder back, "think about lying back on his bum" (!!!) whilst keeping the canter going was hard going but we managed several circuits of the menage.

Canter!

Then we tried cantering on the right rein.

Oh dear me!  It just wasn't happening.  Santana is sooo much happier on the left rein and every time he struck off on his left leg.  My instructor said that its not that I'm doing anything wrong, but its probably become such a big thing that I'm anticipating it to be wrong, so it is wrong.

I tried but clearly, from the photos, I failed, to stop leaning forwards when asking him to canter on the right rein.

Okay, lets canter this way now.  

We decided to allow him to canter on the right rein but on the left leg so hopefully he will feel that it is unbalanced and uncomfortable for him.  We'll keep this up and pretend that its okay for a while just to take the heat out of the whole situation.  When we are both comfortable with the whole canter thing, we'll look at the strike off on right rein again.

Oops, wrong leg ...again!