Cute Pictures & Sunday's Ride

 Magnus and Kokeene coming to say hi 

 Tommy, looking a bit less than pleased to be dragged from the nice weather to work in the arena

 Magnus wanting to play as usual

 Forgot the computer camera would reverse the words. Oh well, this is a delightful book I found the other day and have been starting to use in free rides.  It's super easy to understand and has diagrams and everything. 

 In the black bubble thing "includes 1995 tests". Score! Just kidding, I've started this one, it's okay, but I like the first one a lot more.

As for Sunday, we've had better rides. The trot was not as flat so that was good, and no crop! Hooray! Well it's not really anything to celebrate, I've only used it for 1.5 rides in a year. But whatever. Only one other person was riding with me, which was my friend, so that was fine. Did lots of serpentines' and circles, he was pretty good for those. Did lots of figure eights as well, and going to work on keeping him off the wall. It's really noticeable at the canter how much he leans on it, and I need to keep him off it because it's not a good habit for him to have when jumping. 

Tried some turns on the forehand, he did okay, but he shuffles to the side rather than pivoting. It took a lot more effort to get him to a turn on the haunches, but in the end he got it, just took a while.

We had the same problem at the canter, he was more willing to pick up the left lead, but he kind of leaped in to it instead of stepping in to it. Still better than pacing for it. Like last time though, he broke to a trot a lot. Unfortunately it was to cold to really get after him for that, because then he would have started sweating, and I hate putting him out even the slightest bit damp when it's this cold.

I'm quite excited for our Thursday lesson! My coach is going to record our jumping sessions and then critic them and send them to us and then we'll work on our individual problems. Very excited!