Well, we haven't completely forgotten how it's done :D
He was a bit unstable on the bit in the beginning, but after a while he seemed to settle into the work, and was very cooperative. Lots of transitions between walk, trot and halt. A little lateral work in walk. His gaits felt good, although I had to remind him to stay forward off my leg a bit more sharply than was necessary before the break, but there was a big improvement just during this short ride, so I'm not worried about that.
His strength and endurance will take a while to build back up of course, but training wise we haven't lost much, just a little fine tuning.
On our trail rides I've been very careful to give him 15-20 mins walk warm up before any trotting, and I can feel it has a good effect. A longer walk warm up loosens him up really well, and something I'll make sure to continue doing - but 15 mins of walk feels like a really long time in the arena! I checked the clock today when I felt like, OK now I'd normally start my trot warm up, and we had only walked for 7 mins - I thought it was more like 12! So I need to be very careful to stick to at least 15 mins on dressage days. I think I'll just walk him in the woods before and after dressage training whenever possible - I normally only ride him after dark once a week anyway so shouldn't be too hard. It'll give him a little fresh air even on non-trail days, and I don't get bored so quickly outdoors ;)
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I know what you mean - I need to check that I walk for long enough at the bginning of a session. I always walk for about ten minutes or more at the end (mainly to dry her off at the moment!) but I am itching to get going at the beginning. Makes a big difference. However, at the moment, she is so spooky at the beginning - I can't really walk on a loose rein as I would like - otherwise I'd have no control!
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