First Lesson with Trainer J



So this past weekend I had my first lesson with Trainer J.

I knew of her from the previous barn: I had seen her mostly teaching younger folks, and I knew she was bringing along a homebred young KWPN mare (read beginner horse & people friendly :) She and her partner are serious dressage folks, they show a lot, win a lot, and flip a lot of horses.

Tesla and I were warming up in the ring when J and her working student drove up. I could catch their conversation: mostly involving "falling" so I suspect little working student was getting an earful about this:

7 years bad luck? Not if it happened on St. Patricks Day ;)

Although Trainer J had seen Tesla around, she had never seen us ride. She commented straight away that her weight was better now....
(that's what happens when your pony gets super depressed and stops eating cause you used to go nearly every day to the barn and can't get out to the barn and see her for 2 weeks cause your bones are mending....She did look terrible! ;).


I liked that she pegged Tesla right away: "Oh, she is wicked smart! As soon as you do an exercise, change the subject!"

We did lots of circles and serpentines and figure 8s to help supple her and get her really listening and accepting of the bit and aids.

Tesla had one big spook, she kicked up a pinecone onto an empty bucket and it made a pretty big boom - she took two hops forward and then came right back to me: I didn't feel unseated or unbalanced at all, (she learned her lesson obvs, and from now on she is taking me with her, LOL.)

After the lesson, Trainer J commented on how sweet Tesla was, and sorta surprisedly that she wasn't malicious (ah, Tess, your bad reputation!).

Trainer J has a very different, I would say more modern, approach than Jutta, who is very old school, but I think the mix is gonna work out to be a great education!

So excited to see where we will be in 6 months....hopefully unrecognizable :D






Comments

  1. Yay, great to hear that the first lesson went so well & that Tess has found her mind-momma-mode

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    1. LoL - yup, spooks are OK as long as I get to come along :)

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  2. Sounds like a promising start!

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  3. This all sounds very positive! Good work for both of you.

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    Replies
    1. Yup, she kicked our butts and gave us lots to work on!

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  4. Pretty sure we have the same trainer. She's great so I hope it goes well for you.

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