Post by equus8 on Aug 18, 2010 12:42:03 GMT -5
Kelly walked the calm stallion into the ring and mounted. Today she was going to work on half steps, tempi changes and pirouettes. She had already set a pylon in the middle for working on pirouettes. She did a short warm up at walk, trot and canter. Getting Prince to extend, collect and bend. He was working very well and was being very forward. Kelly decided to start with tempi changes. She was working on I2. She brought him into a canter and did tempi changes down the diagonal. She started with four and then three strides in between and then two. She needed a more bouncy, controlled but still impulsive canter to do the two. The stallion messed up doing the two stride because he fell forward onto his forehand. It was the same problem as the last ride. Kelly did it again, this time he didn't mess up but he was still having problems so Kelly decided to to a loop around the ring to get a good canter and then she came down the diagonal again. This time Prince aced it so she did it the other way and it was almost perfect. Now she decided to do pirouettes. She had placed a cone in the arena so she could do a pirouette around that so she would know how much she was moving. She started of doing a small ten meter circle around the cone, getting him into a really collected canter and bringing his shoulders up and his neck up. She made the circle smaller and then moved his front shoulders and her started to cross his legs and pirouette. She did two rounds around the cone. The first he was still moving his back legs and the second time he was doing a fine pirouette. She gave him a pat and extended his canter back to the wall and came back to the pylon on the opposite lead. She collected him and started a ten meter circle, collecting him, and then doing two pirouettes. Now that Prince was getting it she came around to the cone again and collected him before the cone and asked him for a pirouette right away. He did it perfectly. Now it was time for half steps and the piaffe. Kelly went and got her surcingle and side reins and took off his saddle. She put on his surcingle and side reins and attached the side reins to the snaffle bit holding the curb herself behind his neck. She made the side reins quite tight and then held the curb reins rather loose but able to have contact and keep him supple as well as hold him back when she asked for the piaffe. She brought him to the long side of the arena and started tapping him in rhythm. Prince started doing have steps. Kelly tapped his lower back legs to get him to pick them up more and he did. She clucked and got more energy into him and got him to lift his neck with the curb rein. She tapped his but and then his back legs. Then she tapped just under his tail and he went from half steps into a collected piaffe. Kelly kept the energy and kept him going for a few seconds and then stopped saying "Good boy, Prince". Then she asked again, Prince anticipated it and started half steps. Bringing his neck up again and tapping is butt, Kelly got him to piaffe. "Good Boy" she said and she stopped. She wanted him to know when he was doing it right. She changed directions and asked again with the same results, this time she asked him to do it for longer and he did. "Good boy". This was not the first time he had done this. Then Kelly took of the surcingle and the side reins and put the saddle back on. She got back on and started asking for the piaffe while on his back. In a few steps he was piaffing perfectly. She counted 5 steps of it and then stopped. "Good boy" she said and then did it again for eight seconds. She had only been riding for one hour and fifteen minutes so she thought that she would do some passage. She started off with half steps to get him collected and then asked him to stretch forward a bit more, keeping rhythm. He did a good eight steps of passage and she stopped, rewarding him. Then she did it again for fifteen seconds down the long side. Passaging wasn't anything new to Prince. She turned him around and did it down the long side the other way and at the end, she asked him for an extended trot down the diagonal. He stretched his legs and flicked his feet. We are well on our way to intermediate two, thought Kelly as she dismounted and cooled him off.