Tuesday, September 22, 2009

09/21/09 Easy On the Bit

Curious if Ransom had learned anything last week about leaning on the forehand, I let him work in the french link bit. Oooh Laa Laa.. Whatta good boy!

He lunged so light in the side reins. He was a bit lazy, a little slow, but very round. It looked marvelous. I lunged him for work , hmm, 15 minutes or so, then hopped on.

His walk was great. His working trot was a little short, but round. Canter was amazing. Transition from canter to trot left as in TL Test 2, not so good. He didn't want to slow down, and decided it was a good time to arch his back hollow, throw his head, and outright refuse to ride it pretty. Ugly Ugly down transition. The centerline to halt wasn't even so horrid. A few of them he was slow to stop, but he didn't toss his head up. The free walks? Phenominal! No pulling on the bit at all. The trots towards the end did stretch out some, though it felt a little like he was either hoping I'd let him go long & low, or leaning. Either way, it was still light enough I didn't feel pulled forward in the tack.

We had about 30 minutes of hard work followed up by plenty of working walk to free walk and halts to cool down. We're well on the way .. Sunday is fast approaching. I'm going to keep alternating between the twisted bits for the rest of the week, admitting our halts won't be real pretty as Ransom will be bracing for the yuckie bit pressure. However, if that makes the french link feel so sweet he's as pretty Sunday as he was Monday night, we'll have great rides!!

Countdown to Sienna .... 6 days. Yipes!

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