August 6, 2014

Trainer Ride in a Trainer Lesson

My requests to my trainer before I left for California were "keep him in work" and "fly spray".  (And jokingly, to the barn staff "Keep my horse alive.")  Little did I know she planned on riding him in one of her lessons with an outside eventing trainer who comes over once a week.  Exciting!  And to top that off, there's video, which I won't post to protect the innocent.  It's a shame, because she gets a level of work out of him, especially at the canter, that I just can't do myself.  I did steal some screengrabs for you guys, though.


They worked quite a bit on two things: self-carriage, and keeping his feet moving and his brain processing quickly.  The self-carriage bit she worked on over the course of the entire week, before finally putting it together in the last couple of rides.  With me in the saddle, we've been getting glimpses of it, but I haven't been able to get "there" yet.


JenJ would like everyone to know she is appalled, APPALLED, by the saddle pad color choice against Connor's chestnut coat.  I am nonplussed.  See, I saved you a comment.

Engage the hindquarter, elevate the poll, keep his shoulders up in front of you.  All things we are working on now that I struggle with and she does easily.



THIS.   I cannot make this happen.  But I know it's in there, and she can make it happen.  This is even his bad direction.

23 comments:

  1. That is so cool! He looks great :) And knowing that Conner has the ability must be awesome :D

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  2. He looks great. Keep him alive haha... Love it :)

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    1. Haha yeah, I'm friends with him so it's all good!

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  3. Con looks BEAUTIFUL!!! What a star. Also I agree that bright chestnuts should not wear red. :-P

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  4. Connor is even more appalled that his polos and pad don't match.

    Now, if you added the Welsh bonnet, and put some green on that pad, you could pull it all together. Still, a green pad with red trim would look better on a bright chestnut. ;)

    Once I got over the horrible color mismatch, I did notice that Connor looks fabu. ;)

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    1. I'm glad you could see past the egregious mismatching.

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  5. He looks so fancy and sure of himself!

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    1. Thanks! He is looking more and more comfortable in the work.

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  6. He's kinda got a Christmasy theme happening there!

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  7. OMGYUMMY! Just YUM. That is all. :)

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  8. Replies
    1. Anytime a Welsh Cob gets a compliment like that, it's a miracle!

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  9. That last shot is awesome!!

    And yeah, gotta go with JenJ on this one.

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  10. He looks awesome! I'm not going to disagree with you on the saddle pad color though.

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  11. He looks awesome! You'll get him there, too!

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  12. Look what you have to look forward to! Wow :)

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