Fun Day

 Dan and I had a fun ride today! We headed to Ashland and met Kelli and Marvin. She started in the arena and Dan and I headed to the XC field. I put on Lyrics dressage saddle (which I guess is now Funny and Dan's dressage saddle) with the rear shims and I liked it better that way. We walked to the lake and then trotted back to the XC field and up the hill. Then we did 4 laps each way in the water complex and then we did another trot around the field. That gave us about 11 minutes of our trot. 

 

So then we headed to the arena to meet Kelli and Marvin. I told her I wanted to show her our half pass as they were getting better thanks to her advice on my shoulders. I warmed him back up with some leg yields and then we did the third level haunches in down the long side, then half 10 meter circle and then half pass back to the rail. She agreed it was better and gave me some more hints. Half passing left he wants to overbend his neck and lead with his neck and going right he wants to lead with his haunches. She said overall it was much improved but to finesse it, he really just needed to bend his ribcage. He was kind of cheating and bending through his neck and putting his haunches in, instead of really bending his whole body. Okay.. we can work on that. 

I also did a tiny bit of walk to canter to walk. The walk to canter was decent but the canter to walk sucked. Ha ha! He did a nice lengthen too. Yay!  And oops... we had done 24 minutes of trot! Oh well. He should get cleared for full work on Thursday! 

 

Then we headed back on the trails and hacked to the lake again. Dan and I hopped over a few cross country logs. We even did the raised log down near the lake. He splashed in the lake and got rewarded for doing his right front pawing. Then we crossed the troll bridge and headed up "sideways' and took that to the back of the XC field. With the dreary sky, it felt like we were entering Narnia when we came out over the second bridge. 

  

It was a fun day. Dan felt like he was working nicely and using his neck appropriately. He didn't have the massive butt foam like the other day but it also wasn't as hot. He still felt good though and I do think his neck muscle is starting to build up again. So.. maybe he really doesn't like his peter horrobin??? Hopefully I can sell it!