The Funnel Exercise

During my last lesson on Legacy we used poles to switch it up a little. Although I pretty much understood what was wanted of us after a tester warm up round. It took me a while to translate it over to Legacy. 

What we did with the poles;

On a 20 circle I would either go on the inside, over or on the outside of the fan of poles. Then on the set of 2 poles I would go between the fence and poles, between the 2 poles or on a smaller circle between the fan of poles and the 2 poles. 

I did this exercise in trot on both reins and my instructor would say what she would want us to do with the next set of poles as we finished one set. For example I would go between the gate and the poles and then over the fan of poles. Sometimes she would leave it a little longer so I would have to react fast and get Legacy working quickly and effectively. We struggled with this a little in the beginning because it took a while to get Legacy into a nice rhythm, she would be running along in trot. When she's at this pace I never know to kick her on to keep her going or slow her down to steady her I'm fear she's going to think I'm asking her to canter or if she'll stall on me. I had to try get her into rhythm without showing her I'm worried about what she's going to do. 

Even when you think you've got Legacy working at a good speed you still have to be on the ball and concentrating on her at all times or she will just give up and go back to walk or even just stand there. There was a few times I lost my stirrups and took my concentration off of Legacy to sort these out during the trot and she was back to walk. 

So the stirrup situation is something I'm going to work on, through my position and possibly trying out the cheese grater stirrup grips so help with my losing stirrup problem.

At the end of the lesson we did a little canter on each rein, this is something that Legacy needs to work on a lot as she's not balanced at all, and I don't feel like she's balanced enough to get any benefit out of being cantered on the lunge. So in my sessions with her when I feel like I've got her in a good trot I will ask her for canter but only do a few strides then bring her back and continue doing this as she gains balance. Another thing she needs to learn is that when she comes back down from canter to trot is to keep working and not just die down back to walk.  

I really enjoyed doing this exercise with Legacy and it was nice to get her working over poles. This is something I would do again with her on my individual schooling sessions with her.