Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Walking on sunshine

Whooo hoooo!! We cantered, we cantered yay!!

Moralejo was so good (wish I was a clever as him) lunged first which is something I stopped doing because it just got his beans all shook up but today he went straight out on to a circle and stretched down in walk, then in trot. He was really cool and calm and the trot is starting to look like a proper trot, lol.

Got on whilst he stood perfectly (he does this pretty much always now) and the walk was contained but still expressive. We did lots of lateral work and then on to trot which was again pretty contained for him, everytime we lost the balance I lifted the reins (or sometimes just one) and made him take responsability for himself again. We worked on walk/trot/walk transitions which need LOTS of work but it's going to come good, I know. Then lots of direction changes in trot, large circles, small circles figures of 8 and anything that avoided being stuck on the track. It helped also to sit to the wrong diagonal in the trot and then swop backwards and forwards between correct and not to keep the inside hind leg straight.

Negatives at this point; he gets heavy through transitions around trot and is slightly over cooking the flexion (horizontally) but you can't have it all straight away I suppose.

Then towards the end we were having a stretch down in trot and I asked him back up into a shorter frame and hey, it felt just like it should be a canter transition so we did.

Hallelujah.... the boy can canter and so that's why I'm walking on sunshine (oh and it is gloriously sunny and about 20 again).

5 comments:

Di said...

I'm so excited just reading your account, can't wait to see him in action.

Do you mean flexion side to side?

Well done both of you!!!

English Rider said...

Thanks for an exhuberant ray of sunshine today.

trudi said...

Di, maybe I should have said longitudinal flexion? You know, over his back and curling behind my hand. It makes his back feel really strong (perhaps that's why Anky VG thinks it's good)but it's not what I want. I think it will improve some more when he gets stronger.
Ah yes, exhuberant...that is exactly how I felt today ER!!

Anonymous said...

20! Ok I'm jealous now ;-)

Claire said...

well done ...

and send some of that weather this way it was nippy again today!