As much as Nilla would prefer to stick to jumping, we have a show coming up and I'd rather not have her completely embarrass me. Given her recent behavior, I expect to be embarrassed, but it'd by nice to be only mildly embarrassed.
Our recent time off has done neither of us any favors, but our canter has suffered the most. Nilla's so bad at canter that she really needs to be in good shape and constant practice to manage a decent canter. Since she's neither of those right now, our canter is, shall we say, flailing. The transitions are especially explosive:
My husband helped me by setting up four poles in a 20m circle. I alternated between cantering around and over the poles as Nilla was occasionally frequently too excited by the poles.
We did get some great trot work from the poles.
We did get some slightly calm and content catering near the end. And then we rode down to the water tower and she cantered like a soft, flowing horse and not a drunken rodeo bull. I really need to figure out how to get the same canter I get on the trails in the arena.
Labels: Mule Riding, Nilla
