01 February - Eclypse

Had another fantastic lesson last night, so thank you to the wonderful Eclypse, who is such a fantastic confidence giver.

For as long as I can remember I have had a major issue with coming off the piste in canter... mainly due to past experience where as soon as we come off the piste the horse makes a dive left or right and I end up coming off.

Well I cracked that one last night

We were having a dressage lesson, and are now at the stage where we warm up in walk trot and canter, and that was great. Had a great time in trot going from really sloooooow to pushing on. the canter was good as I was able to reaffirm with myself that the last lesson wasn't a fluke, and I could still canter lol.

Our lesson this week was the "head to the wall" exercise. I was glowing by the end, having earned no less than 3 "bien"s from Katia

Then as a reward for the horses we have a final canter at the end of the lesson. Oooh I was so adventurous! It started out by coming off the piste to avoid some one who was having trouble with the transition up, then I was off! Circles, ovals, not going right to the top of the school, going off on the 3/4 line.

I was absolutely on cloud 9 then immediately sad and upset because I just don't have the same confidence on Pinto. I feel so bad because although I was having fantastic fun cantering round on Eclypse, I still get the willies at the thought of cantering Pinto in the manege, and I don't know why, because I was going as fast on Eclypse and what I do on Pinto. Sometimes I think I need my head read!