Tempo

I go to Anna for a lesson. She starts off by lunging Gally with side reins. Walk, trot and canter.

Then I jump on, determined to become the boss. I use the whip in walk to trot transition, and get told off. Oh, you just can't win. Apparently I need to become boss by using my legs. Ok. We do some work in trot. One minute Gally is too slow, then he is too fast. The problem is that the tempo he chooses is not the right tempo. And "you haven't worked out what your tempo needs to be yet", says Anna. Well, she's spot on there.

As we prepare to go into canter, Anna says "don't worry at all about where his head is. Just ride." I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We go into canter, and I sit back, feeling the tempo, and using seat voice and legs to keep it really active. It's great. I feel like a little kid again, belting around the arena without a care in the world.

I think Anna sees that it's actually working, and we do the same thing on the other rein. This time she asks me to gently ask him to stretch down with my inside hand. He plays with the bit, and comes slightly round. Finally, Anna has found an approach that works for both horse and rider.

I suddenly realise that this is probably the biggest challenge for a coach. A certain approach might work for a horse, but if the rider can't execute this approach, then you've got to find something else. To be fair, a coach must be given sufficient time to find an approach that works for both, and this may take several lessons, preferably in close succession.

At the end Anna hops on the horse herself. She rides brilliantly, and repeatedly shows me how he still bosses me around.