All Ears On Me

A big emphasis in our last few lessons has making sure I have Cupid's attention.  When we are in our outdoor, a lot of the time he is just distracted, and it's obvious.  But when we're in the covered arena he is always so well behaved, I didn't even realize that he is still quite easily distracted.  Even though he is not spooking or being wiggly, he isn't fully focused on me.  My trainer said I need to always be able to get his ear on me - so if his ears are forward I ask with a little squeeze on the inside rein and if he doesn't flick an ear back at me we do a small circle to get his attention.  At first we did a lot of circles - but after a few rides he usually flicks his ear on me just with the squeeze.  This is helping me ride more proactively, and hopefully will help us in more difficult environments like when we are at a show.

We did a good exercise at the end of the arena where I rode one half of a circle regularly, but rode the corners as corners, going deep.  My coach is always saying to use my corners to set us up so we really worked on that.  She said think of almost a shoulder fore a few steps before the corner.  We did it first at the trot, then the canter.  We also practiced coming through the corner and then going across the diagonal.

I watched back my video of today's lesson, and loved Cupid's energy and how he was stepping under himself.  The quality of his trot has definitely improved, as has his balance at the canter.  Our canter transitions felt good too.  (However, I didn't love his face still above the vertical most of the time...)