If Nicole possessed a middle finger, she surely would have flipped me the bird today. We worked on flying lead changes, and I should have stopped after getting 2, but alas, dear reader, I stupidly trudged onward, and I was wrong to do so.
This was one of those instances where I failed to see things from her perspective, and to remember how little experience she has, and, in short, I expected too much and didn't give her enough credit. I guess there are horses in the world that take a long time to learn lead changes; Nicole did 2 within the first 20 minutes of attempting them for the first time. The sensitive rider would have been happy with that.
Of course I forgot to turn on my video camera, and have nothing to show you, dear reader. Perhaps I will be more on top of my game tomorrow, as I've clearly gotten behind the 8 ball today.
I don't know how smart it is to teach her lead changes now; I have reasons for doing so, but I can also see the disadvantages. On the one hand, common dressage wisdom dictates teaching lead changes before the counter canter is firmly established, because now is when the horse naturally will want to change. On the other hand, I could see Nicole using this as a way to get out of counter canter at some point in the future.
But the truth of the situation is that the horse is using cross canter to get out of counter canter (or when she is spooking at something), and I'd rather have her doing a lead change than cross cantering. In other words, she is a little to balanced in the cross canter, and I'm concerned it's going to become too ingrained. Also, technically, when she flips to the cross canter, she is, in effect, changing her lead late behind, which I'm concerned will come back to haunt me, so I want to stop it right now.
