More Easy Exercises - Still Day 1

I rode Izzy later in the day, and to everyone's surprise, he was relaxed and super willing. He wasn't heavy in my hand, he didn't try to blow through my aids, and nothing was hard for him. Chemaine mostly just watched me ride and offered things here and there to help me fill in the gaps or firm things up.

Photo by Edyta

Izzy was being so cooperative, that we didn't do a lot of new stuff. We worked on some baby leg yields where the purpose was to just show him that he could cross over with the hind leg. Chemaine didn't fuss too much if we weren't straight or if we were over-bent (see photo). It was more about moving the hind end around.

Baby leg yields, but check out that cross over!

Riding the leg yield on Izzy is much easier than it is on Speedy.

The one exercise that I really liked for Izzy was the serpentine. I've been doing these at the walk already, so Chemaine just gave me other variations to do while on the serpentine, especially at the trot.

• Change the bend - this is easy to do because that's what a serpentine lends itself to. This is where Chemaine had me focus on her bend changing exercise: Firm up the outside rein, sit on the inside seat bone, flex the inside rein to soften if needed, that rein becomes the new outside rein. Sit on the new seat bone, flex the inside rein to soften. Repeat.
• Walk at X. Instead of riding the serpentine all the way through, Chemaine had me do a walk transition at X using the "Compression" exercise from yesterday's post. 
• Halt at X. This also requires the "Compression," but it really gets the horse thinking about half halting.

I already know I am going to be doing a ton of these serpentines, especially since there are so many ways to change it up.

Green bean doing his thing. - Photo by Edyta

What Chemaine most liked about the way I rode Izzy on Sunday was that I had him much more mentally engaged. Even though he was being a really good boy, I wasn't giving him the chance to look around or focus his attention elsewhere. I was always asking him to change the bend or move his hind quarters or soften to the inside rein.

Monday's ride was a different story, but we still had an awesome day!