Lesson with Angela Lloyd - End of Jan

Decided if I was going to seriously try & do horse trials again, that I needed to start putting more importance on the lessons and doing stuff correctly for a change, so booked a lesson with Angela Lloyd. I tend to spend my money on competing and have nothing left for lessons, however I do believe that I would be making better use of my budget if I start having fortnightly lessons. Richard very nicely came out with me and took lots of photos.

We started off over a 4 stride line and I had to really work at sitting up & waiting for the fence (hmm, I can see my flop forward & put him off balance routine isn't going to cut the mustard here!!)
I also found out that I am particularly good at stopping riding after the fence as well. I had that down to a fine art, would come over a fence, land & just relax & stop riding until I lined up my next fence where I would sit up and put my legs back on again. To that end, there will be no more letting Flynn plonk along with his back end way out the back and his front end long & out the front LOL I have to get him more connected and get his back legs stepping underneath him better which will help everything, dressage, show jumping and my cross country which will actually have a bit more purpose LOL Not a great photo but he's actually using his butt!
We moved on to some more technical lines, including very tight corners before jumps and I worked on my position a lot more and really worked hard on keeping my legs on at all times. It worked amazingly as all of a sudden Flynn started jumping differently. He started using his back end. I nearly fell off a couple of times as wasn't expecting to pushed out of the saddle quite like that!



Once I got the hang of things, Angela decided it was time to scare me by making us do some XC fences. No pre training warm up fence here, it was straight into the training fences with the big ditch and a few pre novice jumps thrown in as well. We were testing his new found bravery & accuracy (& my riding) by having to jump over a ramp that had hay bales on either side at the top and an upright haybale sitting in the middle of it leaning against the fence, giving you a small area to jump over. Flynn did this first pop, but please ignore my position!! For some reason I completely freaked out right before the jump. Just as well my pony ignores me sometimes! As you can see, he wasn't fussed, he even has his eyes closed We then had to jump a dog kennel with a picket and telegraph pole in the front of it, on an angle to get the 2 strides to the nice roll top behind it
Also had to jump the horrible big ditch Complete with new found enthusiastic back end *sigh*

On the plus side, Flynn has a new admirer, Angela was very complimentary about him (apparently if he goes missing, I'll know whose paddocks to search!) & said lots of nice things which is always really lovely to hear!! Luff my pony, he tried his heart and didn't stop at a single thing! I also felt quite proud of myself as I tried everything she told me to jump without whimping out :D Goal now is to do Pre Novice on him next season and then she can ride him from Novice upwards as I have no interest whatsoever in trying it for myself!