Chessington 18

28th July 2010

Chessington Equestrian Centre, Chessington

This was my second group lesson, after my debut last week, and my second lesson with Diane, who had taken my assessment lesson back in May. It was a group I didn’t know, as I usually don’t go there on Wednesdays and I was a little apprehensive, but they were all nice, and slightly older than the Thursday group which made for a nice change and I may continue to try and do both lessons each week for the variety, at least until I get a share/own horse. I was delighted to discover I was riding Tom again, and had high hopes for finally having a good lesson on him, as previously I’d had a horrible ride on him the day I first cycled there and was late, and the next time he came up lame after a few minutes. He didn’t let me down, although not quite in the way I’d expected. On the ‘bad’ lesson before, he’d just been quite unwilling to respond to me, and kept veering along the fence, hitting my leg. We just didn’t click. But the hack last weekend was great, so I knew there was more to him than grumpiness. Today, he was all about the spooks. He’d apparently been like it on the other two lessons he’d done earlier. I suggested it may have been the wind (which was really quite strong) but apparently he sometimes goes through phases like this! He stopped dead with me once, and countless times spun, spooked, and dropped a shoulder. I nearly came off when he dropped a shoulder and spun but was chuffed to be able to get my balance back, stay on, and continue cantering under control. Diane asked if I wanted her to tack up Patchwork so I could swap, but to be honest, I was quite enjoying the challenge. It made the lesson a bit more fun anyway! Diane had a very different approach from the other three instructors I’ve had there, and her lessons are much more ‘traditional in that they’re quite formal and some of the ride was in walk whilst others were doing their ‘bit’ whereas with Steve’s all work is in at least trot. It was easier in that respect, but both have their advantages. We started off with stretching ourselves out, and the others took their stirrups away, as Tom was being silly I kept mine, but was disappointed as I wanted to do the same as the others. But in the event they did half a lap and then all took them back again, so I didn’t miss out. Then it was new stuff for me – leg yielding and counter canter. Although I’d done plenty of leg yielding in the past, it’s always been out hacking when needing to move a certain way, I’d never actually done it in a school or been properly taught it. I was pleased to find that I’d generally had the right idea of opening the outside rein and keeping the inside leg behind the girth. I was warned that Tom wasn’t used to it, but he seemed to go really well. We were working in open order in the school, and that was interesting, with 6 horses all trying to leg yield around. We had a couple of canters on each rein, and after Tom tried to chuck me off, actually got him going really nicely, and was complimented with ‘nice canter’ a few times from Diane. I even got a couple of good transitions. I do love Tom… Counter canter was interesting. Picking up canter at one end, then changing the rein across the diagonal, meant that usually the ride was passing just as I neared the other side, and with asking for the inside bend, Tom took that as a cue to try and turning that way to join the back of the ride. A few times I won and we turned away from the ride, but once he got the better of me so I had to swing him around to go back again. I don’t think the counter canter actually ever happened for me. I was too busy trying to keep him straight, keep him cantering forward, and trying to come off at his spooks. But it was a good exercise to do anyway. A couple of jumps at the end, and again I was conscious of the spooking, as he’d been worse in the corner where I was approaching the jumps. It was here I learnt that Tom isn’t the most respectful jumper, as we did the double of cross poles about 4 times and I don’t think we ever left all the poles untouched. None the less, I had a good confidence boosting ride – it’s not so long ago that I would have been too scared to carry off after he’d spooked badly a few times, and almost certainly would have come off at a coupe of those. With hindsight, I could have made more effort to do what the others were doing with counter canter etc – I’d been given a kind of ‘free pass’ from Diane as Tom was playing up, but I probably could have managed to have a go. The others I think mostly kept getting ‘accidental’ changes anyway - I’m not sure any of us actually got it right.