After work, I decided I needed a day off of huntseat work. So I gathered Ransom and his dressage gear, and to the arena we went!
Still reinforcing some of our HM training, I hopped on cold, and started with a long rein walk. I stretched him down with rein contact & release. As long as he gently sank into the bit, I let him stretch. If he yanked or pulled, I'd add leg & rein, and repeat.
Then I moved up to a loose rein trot. It started out nice, even, and steady. The longer we went, the more the trot felt choppy and stretched. I couldn't sit it, I couldn't even really post to it, because it was so fast. Not lengthened, at all.. yuck! So I transitioned from contact, to no contact, and back again. Things improved over time.
Our canter transitions?! "Yuck" describes it pretty well. He was tossing his head out & up into the canter. No more than two strides to get back to trot, and I'd ask again. I got maybe four transitions up that were decent, and even those were yuckie.
Back to trot - Only now it was collected work on contact. No matter what I did to the inside rein, he'd bend to keep it loose. He let me support with the outside rein, but the inside was always slack. Pulse pulse on contact, and he'd loosen it. Nice, but a little frustrating, because if we're going to do any dressage test work, it needs to be on-contact.
Total work about an hour. He did decently well overall. We did have one little spooky moment, thanks to the #$*&^ neighbor's dog chasing a deer across the pasture. Me and Dog gonna have us a conversation if that keeps on happening, seriously!
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