To ride dressage is to dance with your horse, equal partners in the delicate and sometimes difficult work of creating harmony and beauty.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

One smart cookie

The first time I asked for canter today, Horton ignored me and got a volte. The second time I asked he ignored me – and then picked up the canter IN the volte. "Can you hear me now?" I think Horton hears (a Who)!

8 comments:

sylkan said...

I love it.... You are a WHO!

Mary said...

Michelle, I am hoping you are the same person who was offered Nick recently. If not, please excuse :-) Lovely blog, and I enjoyed reading your training log about Horton. Hope to return and enjoy more stories of his progress.

Michelle said...

Yes, Mary, I am! Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you here often. Would love to hear how things go with you and Nick. :-)

C-ingspots said...

Sounds like he's coming along nicely. Have you taken him out yet?
Oh, sooo good to hear you're quoting Ray Hunt!!! That does my heart good. Wonderful mantra...however, one tiny change in your thinking??
"Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing difficult". That way, you're expecting the right thing to just happen.

Michelle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mary said...

I have added your blog to my Reader so I'm am sure we will stay in touch. I am a backyard dressage rider now, and have done endurance with Woodrow. It's time for me to help along another horse.

Michelle said...

I didn't know that was a quote from Ray! I've used it for years, and it is so right. But point taken on the order of things. :-)

I've taken Horton out and about on the hill alone and with another rider, but that's it. I wanted to take him on the last horse-camping trip but our truck wasn't acting right. Maybe I can take him to the beach for a ride yet this fall!

Michelle said...

;-) There's an image in my mind about this whole process; I hope it's true. Horton is like a boulder sitting on a gradual slope. It has taken much effort to budge that boulder, but now that I have it rolling, it will be easier to KEEP it moving, and momentum will help it roll ever faster.