Commotion Central!

Poor Dan! It was crazyness today at High Point. But the SUN finally came out!!!

Dan hasn't been ridden in a few days and it was still a bit chilly out, so I figured he might be a little bit up. We went for a little hack around the farm to stretch his legs and he was super good, but he wanted to be naughty. He thought about going up a few times, but he didn't!!! Then as we were heading back by the road a motorcyclist went by. He didn't slow down but he didn't speed up or be obnoxious. And I was behind the fence and off the road a ways. But Dan used it for an excuse and leapt up and danced for a second or two. However, he didn't go up really high and he came right back down. So I didn't punish him for it because it was legit and not bad. And considering how good he was trying to be, I felt it wasn't fair to punish him. 

Then we headed to the ring and it was busy in there too. Cindy was riding Sunny and then Peri got on. And they were doing groundwork with a young horse in the corner. And then Stephanie put up a jump and had a student jumping. And there may have been another person riding too. Oh yep.. Claire was riding. So yep.. it was chaotic! But Dan was actually pretty darn good. At least with the people and the commotion. He did decide to be spooky in the corner up by Cindy. He spooked at a blanket on the rail and then at the equicube or something else on the wall. 

Cindy wanted me to take away attention from the outside and bring it to the inside, specifically my inside leg. She was trying to get me to let go of the outside rein and push him to the outside with my inside leg. If it meant that I had to turn to the left, so be it. I finally got it. And he was finally good. :) Oh, and I had to be super careful about my right leg. It tended to kick forward and block Dan's shoulder from going right. Sigh... I think it does that a lot, not just when he's spooking. At the canter, at the leg yield... I need to keep it under control!. :)

We worked on increasing my tempo at the trot. He sucks me into a slow trot which is nice, but his faster trot is so much nicer. Then we also worked at my seat in the canter. Dan has a lovely canter but it sucks me into pushing back with my seat. I need to really focus on moving my seat forward and using my core to keep him going. It's hard but we got it. And it helped with the right lead and our teeniest of teeny canter serpentines.

So yep... not a ton of specific work but it was great for his brain. He didn't pin his ears or go after anyone today too, even with it as crowded as it was. Good boy!!