Two to Tango

Merlin was shown for sale yesterday morning, so I decided to give him the afternoon off. Instead, I rode my buddy Tango, a cute paint/Hanoverian cross with tons of dressage potential. He's very sensitive to aids (particularly seat aids), which is both a blessing and a challenge for a rider like me. When I'm out of shape we miscommunicate pretty often, but when I'm tuned up and sitting quietly we work really well together, so it's just a matter of getting us both back into shape. I'm hoping to start a half-lease on him in a month or so.

In December, he and I were schooling first level dressage nicely, but we've lost a lot of ground since then. Yesterday he was looky, wound up, and also somewhat stiff. So my goal for the ride was simply to work him out of his looky-lookiness and get both of us re-balanced at the trot. I started off walking on the buckle, letting him stretch his back and get his bearings. I picked up contact and worked on serpentines, circles, spiral-in circles, etc. at the walk until he gave up on looking around and began stretching forward, licking and chewing, contemplating what I would ask him to do next. But it didn't last long... at the first sign of a trot transiton, Tango shot forward, and I promptly responded by tipping forward and grabbing the inside rein. My bad. So we did a few laps of choppy trot with Tango bunched up, nose in the air, while I tried to get organized again. Lots and lots of trot work later, I finally settled down and found my seat, and he rewarded me by stretching forward into a steady, balanced, floating trot.

Good boy Tango! We'll get our act together yet. We've got a week of beautiful riding weather coming up!