Dressage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dressage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am back from my horse riding lesson at Trinity Stables in Robards Kentucky. I drive from Madisonville Kentucky to take lessons from Michelle Adams an expert in dressage. The article explains better than I could what dressage is all about. I was on Theo today a former race horse trained to race too slow to do it well enough and converted to schooling horse. Theo is a sweet natured fellow with a desire to trot when you need to walk and who has moments where watching the butterfly is important. Today I was taught about how to stop a horse not listening to do the walk by turning the outside hand outwards so the head turns towards the fence and putting his nose on my toe. Then back to the other side. Eventually when he learns that not listening means he works even harder neck muscles out of condition due to the winter lay off period, he learns listening is less work. Kids are a lot like that I think. Theo's lesson was good for me too since I missed not being in the saddle during the bad weather and while Diana was taking her lesson I warmed up with 4 rounds of Tai Chi in the horse paddock waiting area near Mr. P and Larry the white stallion who watched me with great interest waving hands like clouds, doing reverse monkey, and wave hands like stork. I once learned if I did an apparent close up move towards the horses at Hazels they would rear and move away from the fence as if I pushed them. I had to learn to face away from them to keep things calmer after that insight. It is finally a pretty day, we watched cats luv cheeseburger video's, and digested eating lunch at the Robards Diner where they serve good food near the water tank in Robards. Madisonville Tai Chi can be a blessing in horse riding since if you sink your breath deep to the abdomen, relax your shoulders and lower back and put your weight back in your seat bones the horse will tend to go slower without having to move your hands so much. One lesson today was keeping hands still, your pinky finger on the neck touching, and doing work with seat bones and center of gravity and feet less. A sensitive horse can take subtle clues. A horse looking at a butterfly might need more input like put your nose on my toe one at a time until you listen and stop trying to trot when we are walking. It is kind of interesting to me that an 1100 pound horse can think a bunny will eat it and want to run or stare at a butterfly on the first warm day kind of drifting mentally. Of course I kind of feel like drifting on a warm sunny day where the cats want to show their belly to the sky too. Peyton