Sarah wasn’t able to make it to the lesson today so it was
just Grace and I. I hauled in early giving myself plenty of time to get there
and warm up before Mario arrived. Grace warmed up well but I still wasn’t
pleased with our lope transitions she was still throwing her head and/or
grunting on the first step of the departure. Mario asked if I’d done any shows
since the last lesson so I told him about the small show I went to on Sunday.
For once our rail classes were actually our best classes; Grace’s lope improved
with each class but I wasn’t happy with our ride in the trail classes. The
pattern was simple and we did well with the obstacles, it was the in between the
obstacles that lacked. Grace threw her head on the lope transition and picked
up the wrong lead – this is not the ride I want this year in the show ring. With
that in mind Mario asked me to ride a horsemanship pattern doing a figure eight
with a simple change in the middle. For the simple change he wanted me to bring
Grace to a halt and then step off into the other lead. He also asked that I
ride it one handed, something we hadn’t done yet in one of his lessons.
The right lead lope transition wasn’t half bad; Grace kept
her head level. She popped her head up in the left lead and leaned out her
shoulder. Mario pointed out that Grace pins her ears into the lope and even
though her right lead departure was technically correct the ear pinning isn’t
very appealing. Mario asked me if Grace has ever given me a perfect lope
departure and I had to admit the answer is no. While she has improved by leaps
and bounds over the last few months I never know if the good transition will be
there when I ask for it. Mario finally gave me his impression of my little
mare, he said he does like her and she looks like a horse that could do a lot
of things but she reminds him of an employee that is always 5 minutes late to
work. She shows up and does her job but is complacent about it and will only do
it if she is told to. He said she isn’t bad or evil, but she’s never been made
to do what is expected of her. I told him that I don’t always believe that she
can do what I am asking, which he backed up by saying that Grace doesn’t believe
that I will make her do it. He then gave me his first impression of Grace from
when he judged her at the AQHA Novice show last June. Mario said he thought of her as one
of those horses that he would like to buy, put 30 days on and then sell. This
spoke volumes to me because it said he believed that the horse could do it if
someone just took the time to make her. When Mario asked if he could ride Grace
I couldn’t hand the reins over fast enough.
After preparing her with a walk circle Mario asked Grace to
lope off, she squealed and hopped into the lope. Mario immediately kicked her
up with his leg and bumped her with his hand to get her head back down. In one
lope circle I saw her lope completely change, suddenly she became very businesslike.
After going back to the walked he asked her to lope off again and I saw what
was by far the best lope departure that mare has ever performed and it just got
better from there. If Grace lifted her head at any time Mario bumped her back
down with leg and hand as soon as she gave he gave. Mario made mention of Grace’s
leaning to the left, he said he had to continually correct her. He suggested
that I get her as soft on the left side as she is on the right, or ride her on
the edge of a cliff so that if she leaned to the left she would fall off. Of
course he didn’t actually mean that but I understood the idea, there needs to
be a consequence for her drifting to the left.
When I got back on I could feel a difference, Grace’s
shoulder and wither felt elevated, she was more on her hind end. Mario coached
me through the timing of my leg and hands, we quickly discovered that when I
ride one handed I pull back on the reins instead of up. That adjustment added with leg changed everything.
I had Mario work with me on when to put my hand down and let go as I didn’t
always feel it. Our lope transitions
improved with each one and the quality of the lope was like riding a different
horse. Gone was the grunting, squealing
and even the ear pinning. Mario pointed out that the lope even had a cleaner
sound to it and that Grace was now reaching up underneath herself. This brought
me back to the discussion that I’ve had with Sarah; when I don’t push Grace and
ask more out of her I actually create lameness by allowing her to stay stiff
and rigid. I’ve never really believed that Grace could step up and give the quality
transitions and gaits that are expected in the show ring and I spend a lot of
time making excuses for it. Today I saw and felt that my horse is capable of
going to that next level but that I have to insist on it. At the end of the
ride while Mario and I were talking he pointed out that Grace looked different,
the look in her eye had changed she was listening to me and that if I asked
her to lope right then she would willingly step into it. Something tells me
that Grace’s days of showing up 5 minutes late are over. There is a new manager
in town and she won’t tolerate tardiness.
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