It's probably become an annual occurrence that I come to the realization that Cupid likes to ignore my leg and I should probably do something about it. So we (mostly) fix the problem, and then over time let standards slip again. So it's that time again. Ask with a light squeeze and follow with the whip if I don't get a suitable response. To start we mostly focused on accelerating out of the corners. I'm trying to really feel the push from behind, which is a bit difficult for me. I can feel when the front end gets lighter but have a harder time feeling the rear.
Riding Cupid this way is definitely more work for me - but actually not as much work as I thought. I was expecting him to get a bit more pissy about we expecting more from him, but he is actually quite agreeable. If I was able to ride him more effectively, he'd be quite a nice horse 😂
I feel like I've made good progress with my upper body, and some progress with my legs though as you can see in the picture below I still end up bracing on my stirrup a lot. And also in the photo, I still have a bad habit of throwing my hands forward when I'm asking Cupid to go. I still have a hard time keeping my fingers closed on the reins, the rainbow reins are very helpful for me to see when they slip but I was thinking of trying a few rides with a stopper like for a running martingale where I keep my hands. If I can get the darn things on my reins!
We also did a bit of stirrup work our last lesson. I've been trying to ride without stirrups about once a week, but I still find it a bit harder to sit while maintaining the stirrups.
We've also been doing a bit of jumping. Last week felt really great - Cupid found the sweet spot carrying me to the jumps but not rushing. The first time over the stone wall was a bit of a flyer that jumped me out of the tack, but our second time over was much smoother. This week we did a little 2'-2'3" course. I'm still not planning to show over fences, but it's fun when I can control the jumps and course!
