And it was such a pretty day! I slept in... fed the ponies and the sun was so warm and sunshiney, I was even able to pull clothes. Of course it was still a hair chilly and I was planning on putting a sheet on Dan until later but he rolled before I could get back out with his sheet, so... he stayed nekkid. ;) Then I took stuff to goodwill and Mike and I reorganized the storage shed. (In hopes that we can empty the storage shed we are paying for!). Then we had lunch. Then I dragged (drug???) the arena with Mikes' help. He watched me try to manuever between a jump and the arena fence at too much of an angle and snag the bucket on the fence. WHOOPS!! Good thing it's ours now. :) ha ha. Then I rinsed Fleck's boo boo off and clipped it so I could get a better look. It actually looks really good! Then I fed him some soup and then grabbed Dan for a ride. By now it was super lovely out!
We lunged first and he did pretty well! He was a little more up and slightly braced tracking left today but we did get some decent work. When we got to the arena we had some decent work too. He was much more in front and open in the throatlatch today and not as behind the vertical, but he was also a little bit more braced at times. But more in front of my leg. So really, lots of good. We had a little tantrum when we started to canter. As soon as I started to think about cantering he got behind the bit and started doing his tongue fussyness. I knew it was coming. I tried to give him something to do that he knew and understood and I could reward him for... to get his mind off worrying/stressing and get his tongue back in his mouth. It didn't really work. So then we tried to go forward and just went to the canter and then he settled. Weird.... I honestly don't know why he's doing this. I'm sort of assuming frustration but resolving it isn't exactly going how I would expect it to. But it got better and went away and we carried on. We had some really nice downwards! Not without trot steps, but at least they were soft and easing down instead of slamming down. Our upwards are still a struggle to stay soft, but... And I felt like my seat was better. Watching my video I feel like I look pretty upright and straight! His canter is a little longer today but .... you know... baby steps. So yeah... then as a reward, I was going to let him go down the grid. Ha ha... Wow... I don't know if the setting was set up as a trot grid... although it was four jumps with placing poles between each jump so I was assuming canter... But Dan deer jumped through it. He got us through it but I swear he didn't put a stride in between every pole like I was expecting. I think one of them he leapt entirely over.... (well, not true, because there was ONE hoofprint in there!) and then he got way too deep to the final fence. Ha ha. Ooops. So then we tried the liver pool... and he took both poles down over that. Good grief! So then we did the upright stone wall thing and he jumped it twice fairly nice. So then we did a bit more dressage work and quit. He was a super good boy. We had some positive stuff!
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