Week 2, Day 2
Reason #2 – The Sitting Trot
Fourteen years ago, I gave up sitting the trot in about my 5th month of pregnancy. This probably needs no further explanation. After all the lady parts had healed, I went back to sitting the trot. I admit that I gave myself an “out” because I just wasn’t getting the time in the saddle that I did pre-mommy and I was struggling with all the new mommy things, and not looking to add anything to the list. Riding just needed to be enjoyable, not a challenge.
So, sitting trot went on like that for a few years. Then I ripped up my left shoulder doing barn chores one winter and even the posting trot was painful. Of course, all of my horses throughout history have hung on the left rein, and dismounting was also excruciating. So I stopped riding all together for a little while. Where I once could sit a decent medium/extended trot on a big moving Thoroughbred, I now had about 4 strides of sit trot that sucked on the upward transition and NOTHING from canter down to trot. Even on a horse with a nice soft back.
One of my goals is to finish my USDF Bronze Medal, and for that I am going to have to sit. Therefore, one of my 2021 Boot Camp goals is to get my sitting trot back. Jon was informed of this goal over dinner when we arrived on Sunday night, so of course he went right to it at our first lesson on Tuesday morning.
It turns out, that in order to start to work on my sitting trot, I just needed someone to give me permission to slow the trot down until I could sit it...comfortably. I had a purist mentality that slowing the trot to sit was wrong, so I just kept trying to sit a big forward trot, and I kept giving up.
Jon had me slow the trot, sit six, move the trot forward, post. This was a benefit for both me and Grail, who anticipated the canter depart when I would sit. We started this game one week ago. And today, not only did I sit full 20 meter circles of working trot, but my horse had a soft back and did not anticipate the canter depart! It was a glorious day. We will talk about F——g Florida Fungus another day.