Pro's crew is still alive as well. He got almost a week off on accident (we were out of town, Kate was sick, etc). I think he appreciated it, perhaps even needed it. I don't normally worry too much about giving horses a summer vacation, but perhaps Pro is one of those horses who needs it.
At any rate, he was much better than he had been tonight. Still not perfect and still tested my by the bench and bunny tree, but was willing to give up and work, so that's a lot of progress for him. He wasn't too sure about going round and on the bit after his break, but I kept a firm hold on the outside rein and did the inside leg bumps. I don't have much luck doing big thumps, I seem to just piss him off, so I was doing more frequent, smaller bumps and that seemed to work ok. A couple times I had to tap him with the whip but he didn't even buck when I did it. I finished up working on leg yields. Since I tend to get mentally 'stuck' doing them I tried to make them more interesting for him. So we'd do a 10m circle then three or four steps of leg yield and then let that flow into another 10m circle farther down the rail. It actually really seemed to help a lot with his tendency to counter-bend because of the outside rein contact. He held the bend a lot better when we were doing the circles. Then finished up with rail-quarter line-back to rail leg yields at walk, trot, and canter. Pretty pleased with him, though he obviously needs some more tuning up.
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4 comments:
All in all, that sounds good! Maybe the break will have really done him good! I hope that is the case as you get him back into work!
I sounds like he did really well! Maybe he really needed a break.
I like the circle to leg yield to circle exercise, too. While I am horrible at correctly asking for a ly, it is a good way to try without getting too discombobulated. My instructor had me do it all the way down the arena...
I think he was quite a happy boy after his break. :)
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