FIRST LESSON WITH SINDRI

 Today I had my first official lesson with Sindri! he was really good!

Sindri stood really well at the mounting block for me to get on, and he walked forward a couple of steps once I got on, so I just asked him to halt, and we flexed both ways. It’s progress! Two rides in a row, he didn't move while I got on, so now I just have to work on not walking away before I ask him to.

We walked around both ways before we started trotting, and he seemed very sleepy the first lap, but then he started to wake up. Once we started trotting, we worked on staying soft with a bit of inside bend, and he did really well at staying nice, soft, and settled.

We each took turns cantering, we started right lead up the long side with a circle at the top of the ring, and then walking. The first time we cantered, he picked up the wrong lead, but he got it when I asked him again, the second time we did it he picked up the right lead on the first try. we did the same thing the other way and he did really good, I just made the first circle a bit on the smaller side the first time but i fixed it the second time.

We did the pole exercise next, and I’m definitely going to work on that in my lease ride tomorrow, the first set of poles, he was a bit quick going over them, and then he settled after. I think he was a bit quick for the first set of trot poles because he had only a couple strides of trot after our transition to settle, so that's a big thing I’m going to work on. 

He settled pretty nicely for the second set of trot poles before saying “forget this” and jumped over them both. The second time we slowed our trot coming in and did them properly.

After we trotted through the exercise twice, we got to canter on our right lead (he picked his lead up perfectly) and pop over the tiny cross rail at the top of the arena, and then continue around the arena and jump the one-stride cross rail line on the quarter-line, the line was definitely set up for horses with a bit smaller strides than Sindri so we were a bit deep to the second one but it wasn't bad at all because we got the right striding.

I definitely need to work on not leaning forward in my trot-to-canter transition and slowing through my body instead of going straight to my hands - that's something I've been trying to work on, and it's gotten better, but it still needs work. 

Tomorrow I’m going to work on:

1. Not walking away as soon as I get on, and have him wait until I ask him to walk on.
2. Staying soft through the whole exercise with everything set down to poles.
3. Getting our right lead better when we warm up at the canter.

As well as working on my riding so that I can ride the best I can to help him and make him better.

Sorry about the lack of media today