Renver Magic

What a good day... minus starting it off by flooding Roanys stall. Doh! I filled the water trough and forgot to turn the hose off..... 2 feet of water later in her stall... Ugh. Oh well. It was quickly forgotten by a peppermint milk shake from Chik-fil-a! First of the season!!! I MUST start running or insanity again. Anyways.... Chil-fil-a Tuesdays means it was a Cindy lesson day with Peri. 

It was cold, wet, rainy, and windy, so I was super glad we were heading to High Point for our lesson. This was "Yeah, maybe I won't ride today" weather. But in the indoor, there's no excuse. :) And I'm sooooo glad I did. Fleck was AWESOME!!!

Today was a very eye opening lesson. I told Cindy that I was very much aware that Fleck was haunches in to the right and while I was fixing it at home and even away, it all fell apart in the show ring. The judge even wrote "Horse is crooked some of the time, use shoulder in and shoulder fore to help improve suppleness and straightness". I KNOW.... yet, I can't make it happen in the ring. So we worked on it. 

It's especially prevalent to the right, but really, in both directions, he is haunches in. And it's not really because he's haunches in... it's because he isn't straight in his shoulders. He's leaning and not bending around my inside leg. In order to fix it, I have to get him straight first. Isn't that the FIRST thing on the pyramid!? So.... a good way to accomplish this... is to renver! And I think we had done this previously, but I talked myself out of it. In my brain, it got translated to pushing his haunches back out. And I knew that wasn't the right way to accomplish straight... the right way is to bring his shoulders in. AHA!!! That's it... that's the whole point of renver really.... You bring the shoulders in, then you bend around the outside leg and put the haunches out. And you know what that accomplishes???? A horse that is STRAIGHT and upright in BOTH shoulders!! THEN.... once he's straight, he'll start tracking straight behind too. THEN, I allow the inside bend and suddenly... oh suddenly the trot..... THE TROT!!!!!! Ahhhhhh.... what an amazing trot I'm getting!!! So... when I feel Fleck falling in (which is about all the time going to the right), I ask for a renver, then we he's straight, I allow the bend to go back to the inside and viola! Then I can ask less and less for the renver and suddenly, I think renver and he straightens back up. Yahooo!!!! 

So then we worked on the canter. Cindy pointed out that I really need to focus on keeping my right hip moving forward. I tend to stop it, or worse, move it backwards. This tells Fleck "stop cantering"... and he does! But if I can keep my right hip moving forwards.. he maintains the canter. It was nice. I need to make sure that I also stay upright though. Then the counter canter was lovely. 

We had some really really nice trot lengthens too, but we definitely need more in the canter. I think I was holding that outside rein too much. With good reason... once I had a better connection, it became painfully obvious that he was not supple in the left jaw today. In fact, he was locked and when I tried to unlock him, he took that as stop! Not a half-halt or a suppling aid. Argh... So I must work on that. 

So yep... an awesome lesson. I'm getting greedy for that straight upright horse now :) Whoo hooo!!!