Pro and Andrea (6/29)

Is Pro the only horse getting ridden this summer? ;)

We didn't get to go out to the field because Tara ended up going out to eat right after I got there to ride. So we worked on stuff in the arena. The jump was miraculously still there, so I worked him over the ground pole and over the little tiny cross-rail for awhile as part of our warm up, just walking over them. Then Kathleen showed up and dragged everything back off to her maze so that was the end of that. There were vague threats (promises?) of plastic flamingos showing up, but I've got my fingers crossed that she just brings the extra poles and cavaletti blocks tomorrow.

I think the mentally stimulating warm-up helped though, because he was really good once we went to work for real on the flat. I mostly did serpentines and went from 5 loops to 3 loops to 2 loops up and down the arena just to keep him guessing as to the bend. Then I let the reins out a notch (from the 2nd stop to the 3rd) and we worked at a little bit longer strided trot. His trot and canter were much nicer at the 3rd stop. Then we *gasp* did a few simple and flying lead changes just to test how honestly together he was. I was really proud of him because he didn't get quick or rush through the change of bend during or after the work. Four months ago doing canter figure-8's was a good way to trigger a buck ;).