Up for the dressage most of last weekend.
Not our best and no ribbons :( ; 60% in Intro A, 50% in Prelim 10. All said and done really the best possibility given that I had a back with all the suppleness of a concrete python.
Intro could have been better, what have I learnt - more warm up, suppleness in me is important too! But we did improve on the exactness and balance of downward work from last month :). As for the Prelim, it was actually all I was hoping for, given the need for a little more collection plus quite a bit of canter work. I got one canter which was one more than I was hoping for.
All really good experience. I remember complaining to Sophie about the whole getting dressed up bit .... but you know I think I really enjoy it! And generally Ernie seems to raise his game too - one or two noted exceptions of course! Most of you have seen the jump vid on FB.
Anyway am up for doing some Internet dressage next week. Video it, post thru youtube, get judged! Nice and easy, keep doing it till you get it right!!
We're looking for some new hack-pals for Ernie as well. Nero and Pru have both been out with us this week though perhaps in latter case we might have been a little too flirty - though actually I put it down to Ernie's good old "Oi, I wanna go first!" which to a degree seems to be returning - evidenced by a couple of sizable bucks around canter time - undoing some of my prudent investment in physio this week.
But we've schooled, hacked and jumped this week - a really good combination for the chap and we've avoided napping circumstances as much as possible - though there have been a couple, but put another horse in front and we're done. I think we're happy boys. I'm riding 5 times a week at the moment and you know what I love it, but we are doing less than we were, need to look at that. Ernie has a couple of days off and I think he loves that too.
His schooling this week has been better, the lightening of the forehand last week is definitely helping and we keep building on that. I have been working more on lateral work as well, leg-yeilds, starting shoulder-in and something cowboy called milling (like turn on the forehand around a small circle), I'm hoping this will develop more suppleness in him, a constant theme coming out of our dressage tests And my maintenance of contact, not a strength of mine. Starting to get some good canter transition work in the school for the first time, and no bucks. I think jumping is teaching me a little bit more about motivating and balancing the big man.
Famous last words!
My big panic is summer hols - I need to arrange cover for our US odyssey. Plus the poor sod will have to put up me returning from releasing the ever-slumbering cowboy in my heart!
Trot on y'all!!
G
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