Milha - november 16, 2009

It has been a while since I last rode Milha. We were alone in the large indoor arena. Simple rubber snaffle, no draw reins. She was at the end of her seasons, which showed a little in the stables (slightly sensitive and restless) but not at all when mounted. Started with a walk that was a bit lazy at the beginning, but soon became more energetic with some intermittent pressure from the calves. Lateral flexions were easily achieved. We did circles at both hands, then worked on the usual 6m circle in a corner, with change of hands inside, trying to keep pace steady and avoiding her leaning on the inside leg. I was pleased to see that her asymmetry had reduced significantly, with now little difference on the right hand. We did serpentines, speed variations on the large side, interspersed with halts. These were satisfactory, without deviations from the hind quarters. I tried a few reining back, just two steps at a time. It worked fine without head raising nor hollowing the back. Clearly though, she needs more work on this to feel freer to move backwards, but no resitance showed up as such - just a need to better understand the rider's will -i.e. the 'bouncing back' on the fixed hand. After the walk session, she gave deep descente d'encolure. We then went into posting trotting, devoted to building impulsion up similarly to the 'method' I use with Pacha. Great feeling of power pushing from the back, in cadence with horizontal placer. She does have a lot of 'horsepower' under the bonnet! She surpasses the other horses I ride currently in providing extended trot with a steady, ample and extremely powerful stride. Pacha is still far from it, and even Eole does not quite match this level of extension. That is a gait where young age, strength and size really show, and Milha has them all. On both hands she showed the same forwardness flowing powerfully from the hind legs, without leaning on the bit. Lightness felt in the fingers, with lipstick on her mouth. Lovely!
I bought her back to quieter pace without problem, and we worked sitting trot on circles at slow speed; reducing it as much as possible without falling into walk.I felt she was ready to go into shoulder-in at walk, and for the first time, she did it without contraction, and at a steady pace. She gave her back up, which also is a big milestone. We did SI across ten strides at both hands - equally successful. I also tried leg-yield with outer bend. After a few hesitations she understood and we did it till the middle line fairly well. Lipstick increased. But when I made an attempt towards half-pass, she clearly got lost - she needs to be explained of course!
Feeling that it has been a pretty busy hour for her, I skipped canter and we ended with a square halt, held for 30' at least.
I was delighted, and gave her a good grooming to dry her up where she had wet spots, viz. under the saddle pad and at the stifle.
I phoned my friend F. to congratulate him and to tell him that I thought she was ready to get into more advanced dressage. The disappearance of her reluctance on the right side, her ability to offer descentes d'encolure without falling on the shoulders, and achieving SI with correct placer is a big step ahead for her, and a solid basis to go deeper into bending/two tracks work towards further progress.