Stopping and sliiiiding

Well. When I'm good I'm good and when I'm bad I'm horrid.

I was having a bad run of stops because I was getting my whoa timing off. I KNOW it's the same moment as you ask for a lead change and whatnot but I know that by feel, an instinct feel, not what's actually happening under me. So I started riding my stops like I wanted to change saying 'now, now, now' on each beat. However I seemed to psych myself out doing this and still missed it. Then I talked to Steph, one of Lise's most successful students and she gave me a tip to watch the lead leg come down. This, coupled with feeling the quarters come up has helped somewhat. Also adding speed. We needed speed as well as staying collected and straight.

One day I got 2 out of 3 timed and he slid between 5 and 6 feet. A couple of days later I got a 7 footer and then last week, I'd nailed all three stops but still felt like I was flunking them so I ran him down to the door, really pushed (for me!) at the middle and said whoa.

We went 10 feet! Oh boy, I was so proud! My pony can and will stick that butt in the ground and go for it if I get him right. Yay!

Now it's for consistency and me to really find the groove each run down, the guts to push him, the coordination to collect him and the timing to say whoa.

Our next show is next weekend and I will do two classes each day, a total of three patterns.

A ribbon!

I'm not sure how much it meant as we were in a class with two even novicier people than me, but a win is a win. Unfortunately I undercounted my spin in the novice class else I would have placed in that too. The judge the next day was way mean for a novice rider class and dq'd me for not hesitating long enough after my back up. Ouch. She only placed one person in each class so who knows what the others did to annoy her.

Anyway, I won't make that mistake again and I know I need to work on my pivots - in warm up I ace them. I get in the pen and I tense up and so Tob tenses up and walks out. I need to ask more speed in the lope and I need to make both sets of circles smaller. Our changes were great and our stops not at all bad. The ground is not ideal so I don't push him hard there.

There isn't enough warm up space there so I can't lope circles before I go in so I'm pretty much always going to have a little bit of hyper on my hands at this venue.

It will do for now and overall I am thrilled with his improvement. The judge that placed us remembered us from last year and told me we were a lot improved. Yay us!