happy hacker

The boys have worked for the last three days; Moralejo started first on Saturday with a great in-hand/lunge session. I was really pleased that he was relaxed and free flowing after being 'left' in the field for a week. Worked on the 'big' rein back (half the length of the school each time) and it seems to really help engage himself better.

Yesterday Lydia and I took off down the chemin for some hill work, bless Moo he kept a steady canter in the lead even with Lydia whooping like a cowgirl bringing up the rear! We did three circuits of the big field, walking down and cantering up the hills and then went up through the village and hacked round the triangle route, walking down the hills and trotting up. Both Moo and Cacahuète seemed on great form and behaved impeccably. On our return I took Chapsi down to the school for some in-hand and lunging...had some lovely canter transitions and he seemed not to have suffered from the time off!

Today Chapsi was ridden, after some in-hand work with the mat, and we worked on transitions and keeping the trot more free flowing. We finished with some gate practice and wandered down the tracks and had a gentle trot back; what a wonderful lad he is maturing into. Afterwards Moo and I repeated our hill/hack of yesterday but this time of course we were alone! Remarkably he was just as relaxed on his own and didn't even raise an ear at the noisy (hidden) tractor in the woods; blimey, I even enjoyed it!!