Early mornings and late afternoons

The horses and I have been really enjoying our summer training so far and they are both really coming along well currently.

Monday morning saw the horses and I heading out for a bush ride with our friends, Emily riding Coolie. It was a fun, though hot morning out and it was so nice to catch up with my friends. Sometimes having the horses at home and always riding by myself gets a bit lonely!

Tuesday morning I was up early to ride before work since I had to do normal human stuff after work. Lucky Coolie got to have a ride and it was pretty cold, I wish I'd had a jumper with me. He was understandably fresh and tense with a change in his usual routine. We warmed up and as he worked he relaxed and produced some really nice work, was improving into the contact and nice and consistent. And forward! So much easier to ride him when he is in front of my leg!

Tense attempting shoulder in

Wednesday afternoon I rode both the boys and Henry was great. we have hit a bit of a plateau recently and he has been struggling with a few concepts and testing the waters a bit. Nothing serious at all, just trying to fall out through his shoulder in one place on the arena and being completely unconvinced he can move off my leg in the travers. Now, I know he is capable of both of these things so it's been a reminder to be more effective with my outside aides, and we have left the travers alone for a bit.

Also I do go both directions! Just not apparent from these pics. 

Last night though he was awesome. I was very aware of keeping him in front of my leg and he went beautifully into the contact, carried himself and was so nice and responsive. It was one of those rides where you feel like progress has been made!

Coolie was feeling so much more relaxed being back on his usual schedule and warmed up really nicely. I asked Andrew to film bits of my ride and as soon as he started Coolie got tense, So I think I changed something. we worked through it, and I was very clear with my hands, maintaining an elastic feel rather than my normal nothing contact. He hated it but I persisted and he gave to me when he realised I wasn't going away. We focused on transitions and he was very responsive and less hollow.

The aim is for this all the time. It's hard

Today we are expecting hot temperatures so I opted to ride before work again. Since Henry has a lesson with Jonna tomorrow I needed to focus on him so i sucked it up and got him out for a ride. If coolie hates a break in routine, Henry hates it more. he is usually very reactive and spooky in the mornings when we ride. Just awful to ride really. The added downside is we gets a really strong easterly blow through and this morning it was howling. We got sand blasted numerous times. I think we both wound up with sand in our eyes.

Henry, who usually stands so well when we tack up, is exceptionally stressing in the mornings, so i shoved his breakfast under his nose and raced to get him ready, although still going through our normal pre-ride routine. I timed it well and he was finished as I was about to bridle him, and we went down to the arena armed with a lunge line. I had decided I would lunge him first to get his focus, fully expecting fireworks. I was very pleased when he sensibly lunged on both reins for a few minutes and then I hopped on.

Can I go back to bed now?

The relaxed feeling stayed while we rode and although he had a few little moments (OMG ducks are scary!), he worked super carrying on from what we did last night. Sometimes they act so grown up, sometimes they regress. it's nice to know that he is mostly grown up, and it certainly helps that my confidence is pretty rock solid right now. lets hope it stays that way!