Fancy pants

 Today was a crazy weather day. I LOVE It though. It's May... 23rd!! And it was almost a hair chilly. It was raining most of the night and then on and off this morning. And the weather channel people have zero clue. The radar changed every 30 minutes which made it hard to plan anything. I was supposed to have a lesson with Jacel at Ashland at 4:30, so I figured I would ride Dan first. Then Ashland closed the arenas so Jacel agreed to come to me. I almost asked if she could do two lessons so I could ride Dan in one too, but... Jean had cancelled and the weather went from saying no rain the rest of the day to rain at 4ish... then back to no rain, then rain at 2.. So I just decided to ride Dan when it was dry since who knew what the day would hold. Turns out, I could have done two lessons but it all worked out. Jacel would have had to sit around while I untacked and retacked. And Dan and I had a blast!

 

I opted to just ride at home because I wanted to dressage and the arenas were closed. And I didn't want to get rained on too bad and we had played on the trails Saturday and Sunday. So we did. I put him in the Thorowgood saddle because I'm starting to wonder if he's getting a little trapezius atrophy from the two weeks in the county. He's also gotten a bit grumpier while grooming and tacking up again but I'm not sure if that's from decreasing his gabapentin, increasing his workload, or what. I figured I'd go back to the thorowgood and peter horrobin saddles only again and see. 

 

Anyways... we did some pillar work while walking in and I got some yawns. Yay! We walked up to the arena because Jean's interns had left the poles up against the fence and they were poking through... making it really hard to do stuff down the long side. Argh! So I pushed those through and then hopped on. We worked on all our homework from Kelly and from Gerd. And we played a little. We did some shallow canter serpentines. We even played with trot and canter half passes and... we actually got some really nice ones!! Both directions. We played with turn on the forehand and turn on the haunches too and those are getting better. The main thing we still struggle with is backing and then turn on the forehand to the right. He just gets braced and locked in his neck with those. But the rest of the ride was super fun! He was game and happy and swingy. 

We didn't go on a hack because I was getting hungry and wanted lunch. :) But we did cool down walking back via the pasture.