Show Prep

So this week I said I was going to be all about show prep and getting Satin (and myself) back in slow mode for our western pleasure, horsemanship, trail show this Sunday. Well that went out the window pretty quickly.

On Monday Satin got the day off after the gymkhana. This week in summer camp we (meaning the more advanced students and girls who board at the farm) are allowed to do camp because my barn owner D runs a games camp for more advanced riders. So I decided to do the camp on my friend L's stbd mare Lexie so I was riding english which is a rare occurrence for me. Anyway it was fun and she was good for me. We did relay races and things like that. Then on Tuesday night I gave Satin a very short schooling session to tune her up for the show and our lesson the next day. She was very good.

Then on Wednesday night we had our lesson with our fabulous trainer R. As always our lesson was great. We worked on a lot of flexion in both directions which Satin responded well to and we also worked on getting an "animated" trot and canter. That pretty much entailed me curling her up into a little ball so to speak and making her gait more up and down then forward. I also had to work with slightly bending her each direction with each stride and doing it in an invisible manner. This is a pretty difficult exercises, but Satin was awesome and R said it looked great. Then R had us do some exercises turning around the barrels at a trot and canter in order to help us improve our barrel turns. It involved things like doing a figure eight almost between two barrels. We also jumped a small vertical then circled 3 barrels one at a time. Then I did a barrel dash for her and there was just something she was trying to figure out about why Satin paused on her third step around the barrel. So I invited her to get on and feel for herself. That is one thing I love about R she asks if she can get on your horse and if she can do certain things while on. my old trainer would just be like hop off which I was fine with, but its just funny because R is such a change and a good one. Anyway so she did a dash each direction and got some good turns too. Then she was having fun and wanted to do another which I of course said. She told me to make sure I really sit my entire barrel turn and not to get off Satin's back until she is straight again, where before she got on she was saying for me to get up off her back before she was back completely on the straight away. So getting on the horse really changes things and makes it easier for the trainer to fix the problem. Then R started doing some spins and such with her which I was glad about because we will need them Sunday. Her spins have gotten so much better and looked really good.

So today I decided to ride Satin in camp. We did some more baton relay races which we did okay at. She was good but I am not so coordinated and didn't get the baton in the bucket once or twice. We did this in pairs and individually. Then we did musical horses, which is when one person rides and the other walks and when the music stops you switch and the last person to mount loses. My partner and I won the first round and came second in the next two. Then we did a few pole runs, which Satin did nicely and we did one dash., which we won :). So there went my week of keeping it slow haha.

Tomorrow I think we are going to sit out on camp. One reason being we need to work on things for the show and two being that I want Satin to take things easy a little and have a little break because she has been doing a lot of speed lately, plus its been so hot. Though D and I both thought doing a lot of speed would ruin the pleasure aspect, but surprisingly it has made it better. She actually goes nice and slow at the jog and lope. I think because she now gets to gallop and play more often she is fine with going nice and slow and sometimes. So I think things may be looking up for Sunday. Anyway I probably won't be able to write until after the show because it will be a busy few days until then.