Dressage Lesson

On Wednesday I had a dressage lesson. I haven't had one all winter for a combination of reasons. One is that the weather has been really bad, two is that I have hardly ridden all winter, three is that I usually have to work when she's coming and four is that he's been so bad that I wanted to try to make some improvements and work with him regularly before spending money on a lesson. So when I found out that there was a time slot for me to fit into on Wednesday I did some debating and then decided to have a lesson. I'm SOOOO glad that I did. As I've mentioned before, Brig has been horrible to ride lately. Spooking, bolting and bucking regularly. Last year when everyone would always tell me that I shouldn't work Brig too hard or too much and to go easy on him and be really forgiving and patient because he's only three and just a baby. I failed to clue in that part of the reason that I could treat him like that was because he was a really good three year old. He was well behaved and fun to ride. But now he's turned into a bad 4 yr old and apparently you treat a bad 4 yr old differently than a good 3 yr old. It makes sense but after being told so many times that 'he's only 3', I had thought that I must be doing something wrong but not letting him get away with anything when really I was probably doing just fine. So when he's been bad lately I've tried a little bit of discipline but not a lot (because he's just a baby) and when that didn't work I decided that I would just be really nice and extremely patient and try to keep him calm. Well, when Eleanor saw that he doesn't pay attention to me and that is why he spooks and bolts, she said that it's not acceptable behaviour and that it has to stop now. He didn't even get a chance to do anything. As soon as he lifted his head and stopped listening to me she made me make life miserable for him through working. It was great. It was really hard work for both Brig and I. I sounded like I was going to die I was breathing so hard. My face was beet red too. And my legs, stomach, back, shoulder and arm muscles are still sore. But he did not spook even once and after 20 minutes I was riding him around on a loose rein and he was totally relaxed and calm. Yesterday I didn't ride but I turned him out into the arena to gallop. He loved it. Today I rode and had a really good ride again. No spooking/bolting/bucking and I felt safe and relaxed. I think he really got it on Wednesday. I even jumped him today as you can see from the pictures below. It was horrible though because he was jumping so high over such a tiny jump. But I guess that's to be expected when he hasn't even seen a jump in many months. He was eager to go over though so that's good. I think that he had fun today. I did too. The bottom picture is of me riding a horse belonging to one of the kids at the barn. The jump wasn't exactly high but I was initially a bit nervous to go over. I haven't jumped anything that height in a couple of years and I'd never ridden the horse before. But he was really good and it was actually much easier to take him over that jump than to try to ride Brig as he jumped that height over a tiny little jump.
Tomorrow I'm taking Brig to a show. We're not entered in the show but are just going for the experience. I want to see how he behaves and try to ride him at the show as if I were in it. If he's good tomorrow I might even see if I can post-enter on Sunday.