So... me & The Flag, together with Emma & Sox, Tristan & Lilly and Veronica & Monty had our first group lesson today from internationally acclaimed
Tossy Raynor.
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| Tossy Raynor in our arena :) |
Now those of you who know Tossy, will understand how absolutely awesome this opportunity was for all of us!!! None of us can afford to take 4 lessons a month from her, but at this stage, with the babies, we were thinking once a month would be a good start. We don't want to start jumping them too high too soon. None of us are really that experienced either, so to be able to take jumping lessons from an internationally graded rider is really great and we can pinpoint our faults early on and fix them accordingly.
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| The group lesson. |
We didn't jump at all - but she worked on our seat a lot and reinforced some of the advice Pam's given us as well - like RIDE WITHOUT STIRRUPS at least 5 minutes every time you ride!!! She made us CANTER without stirrups for the first time - so that was quite a challenge for us. Then we did canter poles - but I couldn't get Flag to keep on cantering over both poles - he would break into a trot after the first pole.. so she hopped on and showed him who's boss. I think he got a big irritated with us because we also had an hour lesson this morning with Pam - so he was probably a bit tired...and I was very cautious to smack him with the crop too hard in case he tries to buck me off again.
She was wearing spurs obviously - so he was nice and forward!!! Went on the bit immediately and cantered beautifully!!!
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| Me & Flag riding in the lesson. |
Don't think he's ever had someone ride him with spurs... he did try some tricks with her but she showed him who's boss and he cantered over the poles beautifully twice!! She says she can see he's sometimes very stubborn and that I'm too soft with him - I need to show him who's boss... so I guess that's going to be my next step - pushing us both out of our comfort zone and riding him much, much more forward... I think he's getting lazy the little shit :) She also suggested I get spurs, but there is no way at all that Pam will allow me to ride with spurs at this level! :) So crop and legs it will have to be...
The lesson was awesome and she promised to be back again soon to help us. Next time the group lesson will be for longer as well since we ran out of time - but I also think Emma would prefer taking private lessons since she can already jump... so with one less person I'm sure we will also have more time to spend on us individually.
I'll be doing the 30cm, 40cm and prelim 1 & 2 in next Sunday's show - so that's bound to be exciting! :)
