A Nice School

But Only One Tonight

My knees were kind of sore tonight, so I just rode Tucker and gave him a pretty good school.

I focused a bit on the lateral work, with shoulder-ins, leg yields and baby half passes. He is a little unsure about the half pass and doesn't have the concept of the bend in the direction of the movement very well yet, but he is certainly trying.

In fact, he is trying everything I ask. He had one moment of protest after a canter/walk transition when I insisted he not drop onto his forehand in the downward, but he rallied quickly and worked right out of the very mini-tantrum.

His reinback is nice and straight at the moment and the move off after it is also getting much more forward.

I was having some problems getting him to, as I said before, do his downward transition from the canter without going onto his forhand so I set up an exercise to teach him to carry himself better. I cantered on the right lead around the ring to "C," transitioned downward to the walk and immediately did a turn on the haunches/half pirouette so he ended up facing left along the rail and then I asked for another canter depart on the left lead. The canter/walk transtitions improved, and the pirouette movement kept him on his hind end.

Hopefully, all these exercises will improve his carriage enough so that whatever we do at the clinic on Saturday will not be too difficult for him to handle.

I am going to dose him with the Ulcergard on Friday--maintenance dose only--on Saturday morning and again Saturday night and Sunday morning to eliminate any problems from the stress of trailering and the lesson.

Gabriel may be here early next week for lessons too, so I will have some good follow-up to keep me going in the right direction.

Busy few days on the horizon.