First Ride Back

Saturday was my first ride back since BC, and Spencer was great!

He'd had the whole week off because his owner isn't riding him for some reason. We all thought she would be super psyched to ride after getting back from her clinic, I guess not.

I was surprised he wasn't as lazy as I expected and he put in a lot of effort over the canter poles, which he usually doesn't like, so that was exciting!
K had her "hunter queen" out to work with and she's apparently got a very strong dressage back ground so that's what she was doing with him and she used a dressage whip rather than a crop and K said he was just wonderful. How much she used it I don't know, maybe it was just that she had that he was better.

We did a grid and it felt kind of like he'd forgotten how to jump. As each new jump was added he seemed very surprised to see it. He tired though, hard. No running out or stopping, which is hard in a grid, but not impossible for him! Our last time through was perfect and he seemed happy enough to be back at work.
We always trotted into the grid which sometimes feels like a problem because it feels like there's no rhythm and I find that a hard way to start a jump course, he isn't to keen on it either but he has been doing much better when he was and even is able to keep cantering over poles when previously he always dropped to a trot. Over the poles on Saturday he was even doing lead changes, they weren't what was supposed to happen, but the fact he's doing them is amazing.
When i first started riding him, if ever ended up on the wrong lead he immediately did a simple change, but it was really jarring and it took a long time to get him to keep going on the wrong lead but in the end we could do it and now he's trying for lead changes!! I've only ever got about two deliberately with him, so this is great!