AMAZING lesson!

To make a long story short, my trainer and another trainer at the barn where I board screwed over the BO. They stole a lot of her clientele and basically deserted the barn. I am now taking lessons with the BO who had decided to take a break from giving lessons, thus she hired the other two instructors. My first lesson with her was Thursday and it was fantastic! She is great at explaining the how and why certain things work when riding and others do not. We also broke through one of Abby's major issues: halting when asked. Downward transitions are no problem, but when asking for a halt, she will often just slowly wander to where she wants to be (usually at x) before coming to a complete halt. We drilled the complete stop with no side stepping, swaying, etc. Finally she stopped where asked, when asked. This was something I have not been able to work through with other trainers when it was a simple fix (tell, don't ask...use seat and rest of body to ask, not just hands). Finally she was stopping from a canter, which was something we had not been able to do without quiet a bit of trotting in between.

She also said that I have great equitation and excellent contact. She loves Abby and says she has excellent movement for hunter classes. We made a ton of improvement with just a few tweaks in our first lesson, so I'm very excited to start seriously training with her. We will definitely be ready to start showing at least flat classes this summer and perhaps low O/F classes as well!