Andrea and Pro (8/1)

Kate and I traded days, so Pro got stuck with me two days in a row. Though Thursday it was muggy, if less hot thanks to an afternoon storm, so all I did was go out and wave the dressage whip around him to see what he thought. He isn't scared of it, just very responsive. I didn't want to get him TOO desensitized to the whip though so once he calmed down some we left it alone.

Friday we took that to the next level and RODE with the whip. 95% of the ride was much worse than normal, but the remaining 5% was probably 50% better, so I think in the long run it'll be worth it. He spent a lot of time butt scooting and it felt like he was really rushing, but if I thought about it objectively I had to admit that it was probably a more honest tempo for the trot and walk. He can tend to get sticky even when he's going forward. We spent almost the entire ride doing some sort of lateral work because he'd relax and his back would pop up under me whenever we'd come off of a leg yield or a circle. So we'd do about 10 strides of some sort of non-straight line, then 2 strides of straight, then back to some different bending exercise ;). We ended on a very nice, good tempoed, good impulsion sitting trot that I could collect or lengthen just with my seat. Hopefully if we can ride him with the whip for a week or so he'll decide that we're not going to use it for whatever the heck someone else used it for with him and chill. He's pretty smart, so I think he might.