A new riding pattern

Today, I had my riding lesson with Mike and it went well. I very much enjoyed it.

We worked on a new pattern this time. We were supposed to do that last time but star had decided she didn’t want to trot anymore or just do anything so we had given up after running out of time.
This time, when I asked her to trot on a circle, she obviously started as usual with a bad attitude, refusing to move forward, backing up, going sideways…but it didn’t last long this time, I kept on asking with passive persistence in the proper position and off she went trotting.
The pattern was : circle next to the wall at trot, stop when arriving at the wall, back up on the circle and turn around 180 degrees, start trotting in other direction and so on.
That was so cool. I think Star enjoyed it because she stopped having her attitude about trotting and was waiting for me to ask her to stop. She figured it out pretty quickly and was putting a bit of effort in it, which was good.

My back up was not good at all though so after trying to explain to me a thousand times, Mike sat on Star and showed me what I should do. Well she CAN back up!! With me, she does maybe a step or 2, with Mike she backs up all the way to the other side of the arena! Oh well…
So I started again and it went better. I have to work on that though.

It was another really good session and I was happy with what we did. I look forward to doing that pattern again. I know Star needs motivation and if I keep doing the same things over and over again, she is going to get bored bored bored! I am going to try the “Question box” pattern soon. Such a good pattern for LBEs like mine! 🙂