We still have it

I finally had a lesson tonight after this long hiatus, and it went really well.  Christy was pleased with my posture, and Derby clearly felt good and was moving very nicely.  We’re only going for 30 minute rides this week – Derby has been off for a while and his fitness has suffered.  We’ve got to get his top line back, so that will mean lots of trot work and transitions.

We had a nice, swingy walk to start, and all of my buttons were working, though I did have to work a bit to get his left hind under him.  Christy told me to “Tuck that leg underneath him, do a turn on the forehand if you have to,” and that totally did the trick.  Moving into the trot, I was pleased that I was staying balanced with my leg still.  With some coaching from Christy (half halts – must remember half halts) we got it put together and had some very respectable quality work with some good working trot and with a little bit of more collected work thrown in.

It was one of those nights it would have been very easy to over-do things.  The horse felt great, the evening was warm and breezy, but I kept an eye on the clock.  I know from past experience that the best way to get back into regular work is to focus on building fitness gradually.   I’m doing a series of these 30 minute lessons this week, and next week (hopefully) we’ll jump to 45 minutes, and hopefully start adding the canter back in once he gets a bit stronger.

The consensus from the boss was that we looked pretty much as we had when we left off, which was a real relief to me.  We were doing some nice work before the new year, and I hope we can get back to that point pretty quickly.