The Riding

Yesterday I had my first official lesson with Lars. He has helped me for five minutes here and there and at the beginning Melissa gave me several lessons (before her clients came in for the season and she got busy). So this was very exciting for me!

It was a good lesson, seemingly the same lesson that I am learning over and over, don't try to fix everything with my hands! :) At least between my mom and Lars there is some consistency :) Vioen is doing well, she is getting stronger and starting to come along. We had to work through some rough spots. Lars really helped me here and double lunged Vioen for me several times to get her more tolerant and accepting of the contact. He reminded me yesterday of how far she has come since when we first started here almost two months ago but also that you can't expect it to all be there just yet. "Be happy with where she's at and keep working for where you want her to be," were his words. Her canter is getting much stronger and from going from basically four months off to full work has been an adjustment but she has been a real trooper.

We are working on getting her stronger to the bit. Because she likes to shrink back from the contact I have to get her in front of my leg and going to my hand reaching for the bit. Lars said that even if she gets a little heavy it's ok and that we can always make her lighter later down the road.

I would say that Lars' forte is getting the horses through to the aids. He wants the horses to go in a very specific way, some start deep and others you start up from the beginning but most importantly they must be active with their hind legs. He wants the horses to feel even in both reins and not too light. He says that sometimes you have to compromise with what you're asking depending on if the horse is coming off of an injury or if you are just warming them up.

I really like watching him teach the upper level students. He likes a lot of change within the pace to get the horses on their hind legs. With the greener horses like Vioen he suggests bringing them back until you think they can't carry it anymore and then immediately go out. He also used a great metaphor for me yesterday: because Vioen kept breaking to the trot in the small canter he wanted me to ride every stride as if I was asking her to canter from the trot so that I was using my seat in a positive way.

He also likes to use a lot of travers (haunches-in), renvers (haunches out) and shoulder-in to supple the horses. For the greener horses he uses a lot of leg-yielding across the diagonal. He wants the horses to keep a consistent tempo, stay VERY straight (or as straight as possible) and maintain the connection into the contact.

With the upper level horse he calls the small canter the "pirouette canter". So the horse has to come back as if you were going to do a pirouette. Before starting the tempe changes you have to perfect the single changes first. He wants to see the horse maintain their balance and rhythm in the canter throughout the change and they have to stay straight.

When teaching the tempes to a horse he recommends that you don't always have to do it in a certain number of strides. You can just canter down the long side and change when they feel right, then change again when they feel right, so on and so forth.

For the pirouettes in the canter he wants the horses to not swing their haunches in to much otherwise they will never be able to stay on the center line for the Grand Prix test.

He also talks about tuning the horse up to small aids. If they don't listen to a small aid then you can kick them or whatever but only to sharpen them to the small aid so that you are not always kicking OR squeezing to get them to go.

As far as how much I get to ride every day is different. The assistant trainer and Melissa already have their string of horses that they ride every day but there was a day when I rode eight horses in one day! It was fabulous!!! Now that Kim is here (the other working student from Georgia) we tend to split up the rides. Mostly we help him or Melissa by starting their horses up for them. The don't really call it "warming up" :) You learn to tack up fast because if you don't get in there quick enough then he's already done with the one he's on and you end up handing him the one you have. Darn, just put my boots and gloves on for nothin'. But anyhow that's mostly what I do. It's a fine balance because he is so specific about how he wants them to go. You HAVE to make them work but you also can't do too much so there's a fine line.

Lars and Melissa are going to be out of town from the 26th-2nd so we are in the middle of trying to figure out who is going to ride who while they are away. It is a huge responsibility. I can't even tell you how much these horses are worth!!! I'll just say it's in the six figures. So part of me is excited to get to sit on their top horses but another part of me is a little freaked out should anything go wrong. Cross your fingers, you know how horses are :)

In writing this I realise how much I have already learned in such a short time. Even tough I am just jotting down off of memory, it's good to put it down in writing. I feel so lucky to have the background that I do coming into this situation. Basically my lesson with Lars yesterday wouldn't have been much different then if I were riding with my mom :) But to see some top quality Grand Prix horses (and to sit on them) is a whole other ball game and I am learning a lot through riding and watching. Feel free to ask me any questions. I will be sure to show you some of the horses I have ridden once the sales page on their web site is finished.

I hear that there's a lot of snow at home. It's crazy because I feel like I have been fast forwarded on to Summer. I can only imagine how beautiful it is there. Stay warm!