What a day! Sean Davies, another EMM trainer (except one who has a lot of experience!) came down to Denver to meet Marley and I! He literally spent hours working with the both of us, refining some things and giving us lots of tips and exercises to work on. Marley was such a good boy and it was awesome to watch him think through everything and improve. I also improved, and have my work cut out for me to strengthen my legs up a bit more because I rely too much on my stirrups. I already knew they were kind of too short, but Sean had me drop them about four holes, and needless to say I definitely struggled. It made such a huge difference though and I'm going to stick with it.After working with Marley for over 3 hours (including ground work) you would think he'd be pooped and not wanting to even move, but he wasn't. Marley was so soft and responsive through his transitions and turns, and his balance improved tremendously. It was really cool. I'm so excited to build on this now, and Sean definitely gave us A LOT to think about. We'll take it one step at a time and hopefully make some good progress as we are coming down to the wire here and still have a lot of ground to make up.
If you get a chance and can post a pic of you in the saddle, I would love to see where your stirrups are now. I've been wondering if I have mine too short ever since a friend of mine told me that most riders have their stirrups too short! And she sells saddles for a living.
ReplyDeleteLOVE your blog btw!!
What a treat that I came accross your adventure here. Right now I am on day 17, and I don't want to spoil it by snooping around too much, but I was wondering about how old you think Marley might be. If you have brought this up earlier I apologize. Like I said, I'm starting from the begining, and if you mentioned it before, I missed it. Thanks! I am so fascinated by the Mustangs!
ReplyDeleteSean is my trainer, he's fabulous! Glad you got a chance to work with him!
ReplyDeleteDeanna, if you look back to day 52, there is a photo of us cantering and the title is "canter work" you can clearly see how short my stirrups are. They are basically at cross country length.
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