Wednesday 17th May

I thought we'd do something a little different today, and following on from what Marcia said about him looking like he'd be good at working equitation I thought I'd set up a couple of obstacles for him.  We don't have a lot of stuff but I set up a passage with jump blocks and poles for him to go down and then rein back back through.  I thought we could also have a go at the full pass thing down one side as well.

We started off lunging him, I warmed him up normally then I sent him down the passage between the poles until he was totally happy with it both ways.  Then I did a bit of normal in hand work getting him in the right frame of mind.  Then we walked together up the passage and he did a beautiful rein back back down it.  We did this several times each way and he was pretty perfect at it.  

Then I thought I'd have a go at getting him moving sideways normally without the pole, and we hit a slight problem, I simply couldn't get him to step over in front.  He either went backwards or moved his quarters around.  Eventually, having tried lots of different methods to get him going sideways I seem to have hit the right button and off we went.  I ended up standing just behind his shoulder with a contact on both reins and pushing him with my hips, and stepping over with him and he understood, it wasn't pretty, but at least he was doing it.  He seemed really pleased that I was pleased with him, but I think he thinks I'm totally mad.  Anyway I decided that I really need to work on my aids for this before we attempt to do it along a pole.

I then got on for some normal work and he was AMAZING.  Getting him stepping over with his front legs had a wonderful effect on his ridden work, he hardly blocked me at all with his shoulder.  Really exciting.  As I rode I was thinking about how I had encouraged him over on the ground using my hips, and this made me put more weight in the outside stirrup (don't know if this is right?) which seemed to make it easier for him to balance and bend round my inside leg.   Again we worked mainly in walk and trot with a couple of canters as treats.  We also had a go at the rein back down the pole passage mounted and though it wasn't as straight as it was in hand we didn't touch either side.

He was really wanting to take the contact down so I let him and he worked very happily very long and low for a few circuits, with lovely smooth changes of rein and pace.  I only did a little bit like this as it seemed really low and I was worried that it might not be good for him, and I'd like someone to see it and confirm that it isn't before doing too much of it, but he was very keen to work like that so definitely going in the right direction.

I was going to leave it there and went up to the gate and halted and his head came up.  So I walked another circle and asked for halt again and again the head came up.  I've never particularly noticed this before, but I think that'd probably because he was the most consistent that he has ever been today so it was much more noticeable when hollowed.  I ended up doing about 10 min more work in walk just concentrating on trying to keep him soft in the halt transition, and he found this really difficult so something to think about and work on.  I then let him have a little trot to relax and stretch and it was his best yet, really supple and bending happily the right way and taking an even contact on both sides of the bit on both reins.  It's so fascinating how all these bits fit together.