I saddled Ransom up dressage, twisted loose ring bit, and off we went. Knowing when dark hits the house, I figured I had a little over an hour to get my work in.
I warmed him up only long enough to check for sound, and hopped on. I rode quite a while collected walk to free walk, but he was trying that head-tossing junk again. Plenty of barking at him, tugging back on the bit, and he settled in.
Worked on lengthening the trot, but stuffed some canter in there to stretch his legs & back out a little as well.
Rode through TL #1 in its entirety, and I've still got that stupid problem with him popping his head & nut-trotting into the canter-left. YUCK!~! I have no clue what I'm doing to cause it, but it's got to be me, because his canter-right later in the test was awesome.... Something to focus on between now and the 15th.
With the test ridden, I hopped off for a "ride break". I stared at the arena, thinking, "What can I work on that's different?" I set up four trot poles on a long side off the rail, and hopped back on.
What a riot! Headed left over them first, and Ransom tried all kinds of combinations. He tried to walk through them, break to canter in the middle, break to canter at the start, and every single go through them, he was cantering away. I rode it four times left until I had a steady trot to and through. Then I went right. Even funnier yet... I never knew he could compact his canter down that little, but he cantered them three times, somehow getting over two at a time, and never putting a hoof on one. LOL. When he finally got it correct, trotting steady to and through, I did it one more time, and called it quits. At the end of the trot pole exercise, he was breathing harder and more wore out than he was after all of TL#1. Must've been hard on his brain to remember just how to trot over the poles. Silly boy!
With warmup and walking cool down, we got about an hour in. This time change crap is killing me! grrrrrr Tonight (& maybe tomorrow) he'll get another break.. Just not enough daylight to get it all done.
2 comments:
Trot pole...FUNNY stuff!
Still issue picking up canter huh?
We will work on that one.....
I really need a video of it to blog. It's the funniest thing.
He's trucking along the other long side at a steady trot.
Approaches the poles
Slows down
Looks at them
And then tosses his legs ALL OVER THE PLACE to get through them
Picks up canter right after his last rear hoof gets outta the poles.
Silly boy!
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