Dressage training

M had a good trail ride Sunday, they went explororating and found a good new 1 1/2 hour route with lots of good paths for cantering (or galloping!!).

Monday was his day off, so he had a lazy day out in pasture with the guys.

Today - back to work!

Nicely forward in the walk, I used the jumps set up in the arena (the pony-girls were clearing them up while I warmed up) to practice steering off my seat, riding zig-zag between the jumps, walking over poles on the ground etc. When I picked up the reins I used the jumps to practice turns on the haunches/forehand around the standards.

I started my trot warm-up in rising trot, asked him to stretch forward-down-out into the rein while riding large cricles and serpentines, every now and then trotting over a pole on the ground. Barokko's Friesian half gives him a tendency to carry his head very high and short, so FDO is much harder to acheive in the warm-up with this guy than the other horses I ride, but we're slowly getting better at it.

I added a bunch of walk-trot-walk transitions, working on flowing transitions without tension. I asked for transitions both on circles and on straight lines. Once the W-T-W transitions were going well, I began asking for halts from both walk and trot. A good halt is really hard to get! We're at the point where if I ask for a straight halt he'll tense and throw his head up. If I ask for a halt where he stays through, he'll step sideways at the last second and stand crooked. I can get one or the other, but not both yet ;)

I cantered once around each direction just to loosen up his joints, and then gave him a short break on a long rein to clear his head before we moved on.

Sitting trot work, worked on some smaller circles (10-12m), keeping bend without loosing rythm. Tempo changes in trot, rising for the lengthenings to help him keep the same rythm. Changes of bend on 12-15m figure-8's.

Canter-trot-canter transitions on a 20m circle, tempo changes in canter on the circle and straight lines. Focus on my seat in canter, I have an annoying habit of letting myself tilt ever so slightly IFV in the canter that I'm working on correcting - re:seat work, I LOVE my new saddle (Albion Legend K2)! I'm not fighting the tack like I was in the old one (Stübben Scandica DL), so am more able to actually acheive the seat and position changes I'm working on improving. Barokko moves well in it also, his musculature has also begun changing since I got the new saddle (he'd become significantly more developed on the left side than the right, and now seems to be evening out again).

After the canter work I did some leg yields in walk and trot, in walk he's getting to be very stable, still seems a bit unsure of what to do with his legs in trot ;)

Then back to rising trot, a couple minutes of figure-8's in different sizes, again asking for FDO, stretching the topline. And the cooled him off at the walk. After a couple of minutes of walking he began pulling toward the arena door, stopping every time we got close etc. I kept him walking, figuring he was impatient to get back to the stall because it was feeding time - but as soon as we got into the stable and I put him in cross ties he let out a huge sigh, and peed and peed and peed all over the aisle. Poor guy, he needs to develop a specific "I need to pee" signal (our old horse Coco had that - he'd stop up and very demonstratively stomp the ground with his right fore if he needed to go - very useful!)...