Bosco last summer.
So, first week has come and gone, and I have had a wonderful time!
Bosco had to be vaccinated from the beginning again because of the old ones had expired, so he had tuesday off and wednesday we only did some light work in the arena.
Thursday we had our first lesson for Pelle. I was focusing on three things;
*flexible in the hips
*contact
*forward!
I started working in walk, working to get an active seat with a flexible hip and get the right contact. At the beginning I tried to use my legs to get impulsion, but my hip wasn't flexible enough so that didn't work. Pelle told me to relax my legs, weight down, but relaxed, and just use my seat and ride him into the contact. Suprise! it worked. For a while I kept working on riding him into the contact and once I got contact, try and stretch his neck down and forwards.
After a while we started working with the same in trot and I learned a new thing today! While working in rising trot I kept a two-beat-rythm with my feet. Weight down both when I stand up and when I sit down. With this technique I had a lighter seat and Bosco responded immediately! I had to keep working on this rythm, contact on the reins and turn my upper body to the inside of the circle so to keep my shoulders in line with Boscos shoulders.
We also tried canter, the main obstacle here is my hips. Bosco will not canter faster than I can move my hips, so if I tense up he simply won't canter! So the key is to relax and really get the motion through the hip, I did and he was cantering around. Pelle told me to try to speed up the rythm, I did and Bosco responded with a brisker pace. Then he told me to slow down a bit, and Bosco responded better than I think I've ever felt before! fun!
The next few days I have been practicing the same things as we worked on, on thursday. There is improvement from day to day!
Today I had more or less good contact for almost the intire duration of the work in the arena. After finishing the work in the arena I wanted to take him out for a little walk in the area around the stable. I have never been on hacks out here so I really had no idea where to go, so I just followed the road for a while before heading home again.
Bosco has been known to be some what "hysterical" before so I was prepared for almost anything. I was quite suprised of the way he acted, I wouldn't call it "calm". But for a young, iberian who has just come to a new place I think he behaved quite well! He is what I would call "awake", he looks at different things, but he never turns around or try to run. He might stop or trot a few steps, but thats easy to prevent when I just focus. We passed lots of different things today, scary things like mail boxes, garbage cans and tarpaulin blowing in the wind, and he just walks forward with his ears topped at all times. Good boy!
Before I left him today, I went outside to look at him from the stable. You can look down from the indoor area and on to the pen, where all the horses are. He was on the part furthest away from the stable, eating. He noticed someone up where I was at, looked directly at me and neighed at me, before he continued to eat. Weird, I thought and went back inside. 5 minutes later I went back out to see what he did now, and once again, he looked directly at me, neighed and went back to eating. He is weird, but cute! :D
