Lessons from the Ground

When I ride I feel like there is so much to do.  If I concentrate on my hands, my legs come off.  I try to bend my elbows and my hands open.  So I find ground driving a nice change of pace, with less things for me worry about and in addition I get to see more of what Cupid is doing.  Today's ground driving session could not have gone better.

We started walking around on the rail, doing a much better job staying on the rail and not cutting the corners, and long diagonals.  Then we did some 3 loop serpentines.  Then we did some trotting.  Cupid is responsive to my clucking and picking up my feet more, and trots quite nicely.  Not to fast, thankfully, but with decent impulsion.

Overall he actually does seem a bit more forward compared to when I ride him - which makes me think that something in my body is blocking him.  I've gotten better about lightening my seat, and I don't pull on the reins (if anything they are too loose - but I guess that may be where I lose energy), so I want to talk to my trainer about it and see if she has any suggestions.  Other people who have ridden him have said that he is actually a forward horse even though I feel like he's lazy a lot of the time.  So that was my first revelation.

Then I let the lines get longer, with the outside line going behind his hindquarters, and put him on a large circle (~25 meters).  We started on the easier side, the right, and from the trot with just a little kissing noise (again no whip) he picked up the canter.  Usually when I'm just regular lunging him I have to chase him into it - we both get lazy lunging.  We did a circle, then back to the trot, and did several trot-canter transitions.  The canter looked very well balanced, nicer even then when I lunge him with side reins.

Then we changed direction, and though I was a bit hesitant to try the more difficult side, he picked up the left lead 100% through several transitions!  Another revelation.  I'm not sure how to translate this to my riding.  Maybe I need to do less, since he does it well when all I do is keep light but consistent contact on the lines.  Instead of contorting myself in all directions trying to muscle him into it, just assume he can and ask lightly!

No new pictures so here is a random video of me feeding Cupid a parsnip.  (Spoiler alert, he does eat them!)