23rd March Going Well

After a quick 5 mins on each rein on the lunge we did about 20 mins of work in hand.  I concentrated on the difference between shoulder in and going straight.  I had to really concentrate to stay by his shoulder to keep moving forwards, if I edged nearer his head we slowed down.  The other little problem that I had and I also have with lunging him is that he's very inclined to keep turning his head round to look at me.  I think I'll put some side reins on for lunging and I must just remember to keep a consistent contact with my outside rein when working in hand.  Having worked on straightness we then did some 20m circles with his quarters in and out, all much easier today.  To finish in hand we did 2 long sides of Spanish walk which wasn't as good as yesterday, but the wind was picking up quite a lot and bits of straw were blowing off the much heap and really were distracting as they kept on hitting us.  

We then had the getting on problem again.  I'd line him up beautifully at the mounting block and he'd stand like a rock till I put my foot in the stirrup, then he'd very calmly take one step backwards.  This happened about three times, the fourth time I gave him a smack on the bottom and was quicker about getting on.  

To start our schooling I let him canter a few time round the school on each rein to let off steam.  He wasn't as fizzy as yesterday but still enjoyed his cantering.  After that I decided to concentrate on keeping steady and relatively collected.  So we did lots of circles, big and small and lots of change of rein.  Having done a lot in trot and got his trot steady and balanced we then worked on the canter transitions.  I have found that I give too strong an aid to canter and he's inclined to leap into it.  So we worked on a 20m circle cantering half and trotting half.  I then progressed to cantering a whole circle then going across the diagonal and asking for a few strides of trot and then asking for the other canter lead as we hit the side of the school.  The first few times we did this the canter was excellent on the circle, but as we went across the diagonal he got a lot stronger and started swinging his quarters.  I assume that he was expecting to be asked to do a flying change so this turned out to be an excellent exercise.  After a couple of repetitions I managed to get an nice canter on the diagonal and a good trot transition, but then he was anticipating the canter aid and rushed on.  So we then added a small circle in trot on the track before asking for canter.  This worked a treat and fairly soon we were doing a lovely canter figure of 8 with a couple of strides in trot at x.  It was so tempting to progress to asking for a flying change but I decided to leave that for another day so as not to confuse what we'd been working on.  

At this point my coat that I thought I'd left safely on the ground out of the wind by the school blew into the school.  He was a very good boy about it and barely spooked, but it was in the way meaning that the bottom end of the school was rather hard to use.  This made me think that it might be a good idea to work on straightness down the centre line in trot and canter.  It was an excellent idea as I found it seriously difficult to keep him straight in canter.  I'm not entirely sure what I was doing wrong as he was swinging around a lot and I really couldn't see what I was doing to cause it.  I think I may have to get someone to watch to see what the problem is.  I then realised that we'd been working for well over an hour and both were distinctly hot and sweaty so we ended on a few nice canter circles letting him have a long rein and stretch out.  I then got off and walked him around till we were both a little cooler.  Gave him a bath and wrapped him up in his fleece.