Monday 25th May

Xaile had the weekend off as Hugo and I went to London (wonderful food, great fun).  He was really pleased to see me, well at least I think he was he saw me, shouted at me and canter across the field to me.

It was hot and muggy so I only lunged him briefly to see if there was any excess energy to expend.  There wasn't and he was a good relaxed boy.  

We carried on with the ideas from Marcia.  He was resistant to the idea of moving away from my right leg again, but this time only resisted for a few strides at a time after each change of rein- I wonder if I'm doing something to block him and it's taking me a few strides to get straight or something?

We started on the right rein encouraging him to take the contact while remaining soft and not blocking me out with his right shoulder.  Lots of transitions between walk and trot seemed to help as did shoulder in.  I only did the shoulder in in walk as it seemed it might be a bit much to ask for it in trot at the moment.

We then moved over to the left rein which weirdly seems to have become the easier rein.  Maybe because I have found the key to asking him to bend.  He is more balanced this way and less inclined to fall in through the shoulder.

Then back to the right rein and introduced canter transitions as well.  His canter is getting so much stronger, he can really maintain the canter in a good outline so much more easily now.  The same on the left rein, but the canter's not so good on this rein, he tends to have his quarters in a bit and I find it hard to keep him to the outside of the circle, he wants to do really small circles on his hocks!

When we'd finished out serious work I dropped the reins and had fun walking around the school controlling the speed and the direction of the walk with my seat.  He was brilliant and we even managed some really sharp zigzags and I only had to touch the left rein once when we ended up with his head over the fence at A and got a bit stuck!  He really enjoyed this game.  When I got off I couldn't get him out of the school.  He did his donkey impression- leaning backwards ears back refusing to move.  Funny boy.  I do love him so much and really missed him when I was in London.