Tuesday 10/27/2009

Went directly to the barn after work as I had booked arena time at 6:30 ~ G was a muddy mess when I got there, so between washing hooves and scraping away the mud I was lucky to get in there on time.

I decided since I was primarily going to work the walk that I’d let him eat his dinner. I've found if he knows he’s missing dinner he has a hard time focusing on work. He is without a doubt the most food oriented horse I’ve ever met. I sometimes wonder if it’s because they are on such a consistent schedule that when something is slightly amiss he gets agitated. I know my dogs start getting a bit more than antsy if 5:00 comes and goes without the food dishes being filled.

G picked me up at the mounting block – he’s doing very well with this. I asked for him to soften – repeated this about three times until I felt him release and mounted up. He stood still but then started getting antsy. His mind was in forward gear! So I dismounted and we repeated the exercise. This time he really softened (I think I’m starting to really see the difference between light and soft) and so when I mounted this time I didn’t need to hold the reins or request that he stand still, he just did. Good boy.

We start out by doing serpentines on and off the rail around the arena in both directions. He really is getting in tune to my seat cues now and it feels great not having to use any rein with exception to asking for a yield to the inside. I alternate taking up contact and then allowing him to reach forward and down, which helps stretch out those muscles. Once we were warmed up I tried to simply work on keeping his hind end engaged at a nice medium walk – pure four beats – in a soft frame. As I asked him to pick up his gait, his first inclination is to raise that head and hollow out, so I went back to the walk, we did some shoulder fore, haunches in, leg yields, worked our square pattern, and then I asked for a canter in both directions on a 20 meter circle. Once cantered, when I asked for him to pick it up into a flat walk I got it in a soft frame with impulsion. Around the arena once in both directions and we went back to walk transitions. I believe the canter is what truly stretches him out.

Back when we first started cantering on 20 meter circles G had a hard time balancing. He now feels wonderful – we’re getting lift on the up transition and he’s beginning to drop his hinny and soften on the down transition. The problem now however is I can’t keep him in the canter on the straight any more. Why is that? Anyway, we ended our session backing up and he did a darn good job of staying straight the length of the arena. I only had to use my legs twice to straighten him out. So we ended on a good note ~ he got his peppermint when I was done untacking him. All I got was a sticky hand :)