Are You There Horse? It Is Me, Leg.

Pal - "..say what? Sorry I wasn't listening....."

You know it is officially spring when you swap your winter boots for your paddocks and half chaps. Woot!
Buutt... then you forget to swap your spurs and then realize how much you were relying on them versus good riding. Sigh.
Drawing board, take number, one thousand and fifty six.


I am truly a person of routine. If you ask me to change when I pour my first coffee in the morning or even when I pick up my phone to check messages, everything will be thrown off and I am bound to forget something.
So digging out my summer paddocks and chaps AND throwing in my new routine of jogging to the barn in the mix = 101 things forgotten.
I forgot to feed the fish, I forgot my cell phone, my house keys and my spurs. But hey nobody got hurt. Except maybe the fish a bit.... Poor Blue.

Anyways, the forgotten spurs opened my eyes to how much I relied on them for extra 'umph' and to get my point across. So now I am purposely forgetting my spurs until things improve and I am making an oath to intertwine my use of them so we do not get here again. I am allowing myself the use of the whip because I can be uber conscious about using it since I despise carrying it. So uncomfortable.

Monday, was a bit of a drag as you have read in my previous post but last night, the clouds cleared, the sun shone through and Paloma had an epiphany. One should listen to leg or else the manure is going down!

Nothing special happened last night but I had a very soft and what? Forward! horse by the end of my ride. I merely twitched my leg and I felt Pal stand at attention. Woohoo.

I did notice a few position flaws that may have been hindering my request for forward though.
One, likely stemming from my short stirrup hunter days, I tend to really point my toes out so not as much of my calf is against Pal's barrel which equates to much less 'umph', which I was relying on spurs to produce when my '2 then 4 ask' was ignored.
AND
I noticed that I am focusing so much on inside leg to outside rein and maintaining a nice bend that I am forgetting to use my outside guarding leg. So this is why Paloma was not consistent coming through. As soon as I set my guarding outside leg, the back softened, head dropped, engine roared and chewwies happened!


Amazing what your legs can produce if you put your mind to it!