Monday fun!

Today was a great start to a new week! All of our horses stayed out for about five hours (Vallu and Rama might come back in after only a couple of hour if it's a bad day!) it was a beautiful sunny day and both Rama and Basse went really well.

Happy boy :)

 Since Rama had a day off yesterday, I did some very basic work with him, allowing him to stay long and low in the warm-up and only asking him to become slightly higher once he had properly warmed up. Because of the lack of work yesterday, it caused Rama to be slightly stiffer, which meant that he deserved a longer warm up as well. After about 15-20 minutes of long and low in trot and canter around the arena, we started to work in a bit of a higher outline. We also attempted some leg yields in trot, with the result that I finally figured out how to exactly ask him for leg yield! Rama has always been ridden by men, so the aids given by a short stumpy woman are a little bit different! By putting my leg more backwards that I'm used to, and by applying a little bit more force, Rama suddenly went wonderfully well sideways! You just have to know what buttons to push to make it work. Now that I know how to properly ask him, hopefully the leg yields will become much easier and better.

 Rama is a great horse to ride since he is just such an easy guy, who is happy whenever he is working. One of Rama's best qualities is how soft his mouth is, and how easy it is for him to be in a higher, more collected outline. Now that Vallu is on his walking holiday for five more weeks, mother has been very kind and generous by letting me have lessons on Rama, and hopefully we will be going to one or two competitions soon. I have two lessons with Rama this week, on Wednesday and on Thursday. Thank you mother! ♡

Basse and Satu on today