Tuesday, August 10, 2010

weather's cooling down...competition's heating up

Well, it may not be 85 degrees every day, but that doesn't mean we're not working hard! Oh man, lesson today was IN-TENSE. With Medal Finals just around the corner, we can't afford NOT to be intense...we spent almost the entire lesson today working without our stirrups, at the canter. Ouch. Don't get me wrong, Keenan has a great canter, but...well, ouch! We were cantering two low cavaletti at a regular, extended and collected canter - working on getting 7, 8 and 9 strides in between the cavaletti. The hardest part was just the physical strain it was taking on me, haha. It's a simple exercise, but a hard one. Even cantering two cavaletti, there's a lot to think about and when you throw in me with no stirrups trying to maintain a connection with Mr. Keenan, it's not always the most graceful thing you've ever seen. And not without some frowning, huffing and puffing! The good news is, I survived - and up until that point where I thought I was going to die, we were doing really well! We started out with some trot work, to test if our horses were in front of our leg and to see how adjustable they were. Regular posting trot, extended posting trot, collected posting trot, collected sitting trot - the works. I loved collecting Keenan's trot - man, he's good at that! When we trotted by the mirror, it looked like we were barely moving at all and the way he was lifting his legs up instead of floating them out, he looked like a Baroque dressage horse! His extension was great, too - better than it normally is on my lazy-bones horse, that's for sure. *sigh* and then things got tough. It's okay though, the harder I prepare now, the better these next two shows are going to be!

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