Cowboy Trott

I need to improve my stamina so I can ride longer.

We spend a lot of the lesson working up to getting Louie nice and collected. But when he, and I, finally gets ready, I only have energy for a few more minutes. I think my tired tell is I start leaning to the right too much.

And there is so much to practice when he is collected. Dada explained it today using a stretched-out spring analogy. You want to get it back into its resting shape. To do that, you need to hold one end of the spring and push the other end.

Louie is the spring. With Louie, I am holding the reins taut and pushing with my legs. Unlike the spring thing I also need to work my fingers on the reins, which means squeezing and releasing them. And I am supposed to squeeze and release my legs at the same time.

It is entirely possible my head may explode one of these days.

Not today, though, because after that collected stuff, I got to trot. It felt really good. I was doing a sitting trot and Kate and Dada were holding me. Except for the fact that I could not see straight, it went well. Kate said it was a perfect cowboy trot.