Dudley had a dream day this morning. Not only did he get to go for a car ride, when I picked up Jack who had dropped off the truck at Sears, but he went for a long walk in the Garden of the Gods. Then get got to visit his good friend Brody while I rode Lily. Then he got to go on another car ride to pick up Jack so we could transfer the truck from Sears to the dealer. They allowed him in the waiting room, which was very exciting. One of the mechanics thought he was a very cool dog, and was pointing him out to others. I tried to prevent Dudley from doing things which are very rude in human culture, but quite polite in canine culture. Dudley was still as keen to jump in the car the last ride as he was the first when we brought Jack home to pick up his car. I have never had such an enthusiastic dog for riding in the car.
Despite the heat, Lily and I had a good session. I kept things deliberately low key since it was so hot, and tried to figure out why she is consistently picking up the left lead over a pole on the ground. I don’t want her to do this when we are preparing to turn to the right after the jump, even if she will give me a beautiful flying change afterward to “fix” the lead. Since Lily is clicker-trained, I tried rewarding her for taking the right lead, but that approach only works if the horse is taking their leads randomly, so you can reward what you want. I tried asking her over the pole for the canter lead the way I would on the flat, and she still took the left. Finally, I left her alone, except for exageratedly weighting my outside stirrup, and she easily took the right lead. Allthough I could have sworn I was not off my center and influencing her, Lily obviously disagreed.
Afterward, we worked a small gymnastic with my trainer watching. Lily was turning too abruptly after the jump. I finally stopped looking myself for the turn until we were one stride from the turn, and Lily went into the corner and made the correct turn.
Putting the two problems and their solutions together, I think I discovered something key about Lily today. Hap, my eighteen year old Thoroughbred, was a bit of a locomotive, and required a lot of warning to stop and to turn. As soon as we came off a jump, I was already looking around for the next one and hoping we could get turned in time. Lily, though she isn’t much smaller than Hap, has a lot more finesse, much like my trainer’s old show hunter, Havoc. When I jumped Havoc, I learned that I couldn’t really look at the jump until I was ready for him to turn, or he would turn too abruptly and not make the nice square turns required in a show hunter. I became used to using my peripheral vision to locate the next jump. It looks like a skill I will have to relearn.