Poor, tired, pony

So I had a lesson to make up from the other week and I knew I wouldn't be able to make to my regular lesson tonight so I figured when I did my make up last night,we'd just do an hour private instead of a half-hour private and handle both lessons at once.

I started the ride with the crop in my hand and I think it helped because he didn't seem to start out the lesson going, "oh hey she has a crop that means go fasterrrrrr!".

Kieran was also very good last night about standing for mounting (after getting a couple remedial classes on it ;) ) and waiting until I was ready to go before walking off from the mounting block (when I asked him to). Even so, we still did some work walking and halting and asking him to back up and even asked for a halt from the trot and then back into the trot a couple times.

Still didn't get the wonderful canter we got last Wednesday but did manage to canter a couple strides in both directions. A lot of it is me, every time I ask for the canter, I seem to collapse in on myself and pull my legs up out of the stirrups and hold too tight on the reins and obviously there's no way I'm helping Kieran do his thing. I told Christina it was frustrating because I remember I used to be, you know, good at this. But that was on well trained school horses who already knew what I was asking for and I think Kieran's done the turbo-take-off thing just enough that I'm getting defensive (but not in a way that would actually keep me in the darn saddle). Just need to remember to breathe and push my heels down into the stirrups and sit up straight. Anyway, after we managed a decent canter departure in each direction Christina had us go back to trotting. Trotting weaving patterns around cones. Trotting over poles. Sitting trot. Trotting in two-point (argh). By the end of it, it was obvious Kieran was getting tired and it was all I could do to keep my leg on him to keep him moving.

He's also furry enough that he was sweaty all over so we spent a while walking together after.

But all in all, it was still an improvement over Friday's lesson. Kieran was obviously in a more cooperative frame of mind and Christina said I looked about a hundred times better and more relaxed last night than before. So I'll still call it a win. :)

Unfortunately, I've got a lot of work to get done over the next few days so I'm pretty sure I won't be getting out to see him again till Saturday. Bleh.