Pea's slowly improving with his work now and starting to work more forwards and does less arguing, but today he decided to push the boat out by well and truly chucking me off! More on that in a bit...
We used to lunge him before riding but I've now decided to just hop straight on and hope for the best. He walks out well and starts trotting nicely but does throw in a quick stop and stomp at some stage. Luckily but holding his head up high and strong leg aids he soon gives in and moves off again with less arguments. Today was no different with a tiny stop but then moving forwards really well. We played around with plenty of changes of rein to keep him guessing and pushing him forward in the trot.
He then started to offer canter so I allowed him and pushed him into a working canter. There's one corner on the left rein where he backs off a bit and tries to throw in a bit of a buck, As we came round the corner, I felt him tense so I nudged him on, however instead of getting the reaction I wanted of him continuing to go forwards, he slammed the brakes on and threw in a massive buck. Needless to say, I did a rather gymnastics worthy somersault and ended up on the floor. I think there were a few swear words by both me and my instructor after that but luckily I don't think I injured myself much (though my arm is rather painful now)!
I hopped back on board and I think Pea knew he was in trouble and started to jog off! As he was trotting, I asked for a bit more out of him and he responded by cantering. Again, I asked for a bit more to have a proper working canter and we came back round to the corner where he rather nicely dumped me five minutes prior. I felt him back off a bit again so I sat deep and pushed forward, this time getting the right reaction of him shooting forwards and still cantering forwards!
We came back to trot and changed rein to the right rein. As he wasn't giving me much of a trot I gave him a sharp tap with the whip and he went into canter instead. Claire
We then had a walk round so he could stretch his neck as we tend to work him with his head high to prevent him from stopping and bucking. Weirdly, Pea actually does some good work like this and stretches out more in his paces - he's always been an oddball! Typically it then started raining and so Pea got rather hopeful we were finishing but instead I gathered the reins and asked for trot. He had a mini grumble before realising I meant business and we worked on doing some 20m circles with him keeping a consistent rhythm. We then went up to canter again and this time he was much better behaved so we incorporated large circles. Normally Pea tenses when we try to canter a circle but as we kept them quite large and didn't ask for too much, he stayed quite relaxed and didn't back off at all - progress!
As he had given me 20 minutes of really good work we finished him there whilst on a good note. It's a shame he was so naughty at the beginning as he gave me some great work towards the end!
Thanks for reading,
Laura xx
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