prowler1971 | Riding on the Trails

So I'm a little late with the week's horse update.

There were only three of us this past Monday so we went out on the
trail. I felt as though I had as good a command of the horse as I
could considering how much he likes following other horses. The
biggest problem I'm running into is as we get up to a trot or canter,
my feet tend to slip out of the stirrups. I'm told I need to push my
ankles down. If I shorten the stirrups, my knees hurt. All these
little things really need to start coming together if I'm going to go
on to the next step in all of this. I also found out several other
things I had been doing wrong.

When I asked about my hand placement, I was told that when I'm pulling
back on the reigns for the horse to stop, it should be over the saddle
horn. My hand should never come back past the saddle (ideally). So I
asked where my hand should be for a trot. Just in front of the saddle
horn, over the horse's neck. And where for a canter? Same spot. Okay,
I get it now. I want to adjust the length of the reigns depending on
how fast I was the horse to go.

I have a private lesson later today where I hope to work out some of
these issues I've been having. Just me and Rick in a ring. Then Sunday
I'm just going for a little pleasure trail ride with M who is coming
down from Maine. She used to ride when she was younger and misses it.
So I told her I'd take her for a trail ride. We're actually signed up
for a lesson so we don't need to be out there with a large group of
people. It'll just be the two of us and Rick.