On Monday I made the most of the cool bank holiday morning and decided to school Scottie before it got too warm. It turned out to be a pretty fantastic session really! As soon as I got on I focused on getting Scottie moving forward and off my leg. I tried to tap him with quick legs rather than squeezing him and did lots of trot-walk-trot transitions early on.
Scottie quickly responded to this and started to get a tad excited by the whole thing. So while still working on keeping him forwards, I played with my outside rein, tightening and loosening my grip on the rein to keep it moving slightly in his mouth. This combined with popping him on a few circles around the school had him softening. While he wasn’t completely round and on the bit. He was forward and straight and not doing his giraffe impression. Which is pretty fantastic for us.
We picked up canter and it didn’t take long at all for Scottie to drop his head and lift his back. While this canter pushes me up out the saddle and he pulls his head down and leans on my hands to hold himself there, this is still a huge improvement to how we were a month ago! We now just need to work on refining this as it does feel alien and perhaps a little out of control.
After our cross country this weekend I am going to try and get into the routine of a lesson every fortnight or so alternating between flat and jumping. I’m also starting to look out for the next local dressage competition coming up as I think our Prelim work has improved a lot recently! In the meantime I am planning to get back into the swing of competing regularly with our sponsors EquiMind. There are only a few months left to qualify for their Summer Championships after all.
Last Updated on 14/01/2022
