I got to the barn just in time yesterday! Right after I finished it started POURING. I decided to bring riding clothes with me in the morning and I changed at work and went straight to the barn from there. Kate was actually there when I got there and she dropped kind of a bomb on me. She said that she is going down to aiken early this year and will be moving all of her horses out in early december so I will have to probably leave by then. Ughh, I have the worst luck with boarding I swear! I have started looking for places to move and I found one place online that is similar in distance from my apt and in price so I think I will drop them a line and see if I can go by for a visit sometime soon. It looks like a nice place and it has an indoor but the thing that makes me apprehensive is that it looks like they teach a lot of little kids there which can always be annoying. Board there is only $25 mor a month than what I'm paying now and honestly since they have an indoor it's totally worth it I think. We shall see.

I had a decent ride yesterday. Fred was a little inattentive but the dark clouds were rolling in and it was getting windy and there were ::gasp:: pinecones scattered around the far end of the ring so there were a lot of distractions. I think I might want to try riding him with my spurs one of these days just to sort of wake him up and get him a little sharper off my leg. He is just so lazy and he is constantly trying to drop behind my leg. Especially in the downward transitions. His upward transitions are getting really good but we always lose it in the downward. I think it's mostly my problem. I tend to tip forward and probably use too much hand. I try really hard to think about it but it doesn't always work. I know that I know how to ride a proper downward transition because I did millions and millions of them on Wuf back when I was at Jane's but for whatever reason I can't replicate that feeling on Fred. It's gotten much better but it's still hit or miss. Sometimes he stays balanced and sometimes we sort of flail and fall into it and it's really ugly. I ended on a good note with him yesterday as we had a really nice trot to walk transition to the left (where he has been weaker lately). Right as I dismounted it started to drizzle and by the time I got in the barn it was POURING so lucky me that I got my ride in before that started!

I entered Radnor today, Novice. Freddy's first recognized event and my first since I went prelim on Cruz in 2006. I'm not nervous because it's only novice, but I have a lot to get done before then. I have to get my boots fixed and my jacket altered (it's like 4 sizes too big).

I rode today after work and Fred decided that he felt like being a chestnut. He was just not into it at all. He was just doing his typical Freddy nonsense that he does when he doesn't feel like working. He was spooking at nothing and being really tense and stiff. We did have some good moments where I got through to him but I basically had to ride him hardddd in order to keep his attention on me. Usually when he's good I only ride him for about 30 mins on the flat because I don't want him to get bored or sour. Today I think I was on him for a solid hour and he was working the entireee time. I got a pretty good workout too lol. I just could not relax for a second or else I would lose him. Since I don't have my truck I can't trailer out to trot hills or anything but maybe tomorrow I will talk him across the street and do some fitness work in the neighbor's field that they let us use. I can do jump position and just get him out of the ring and do something different. We have been doing a lot of flat work lately.

OK, I am going to stop being lazy and get this blog going again. This summer was crazy busy so Fred and I didn't get as much accomplished as I wanted to but that's OK.

We're still plugging along though and his dressage is really coming along. My BO Kate, who is also a dressage judge, commented today on how nice his canter work looked and how relaxed soft he looked. She said that it definitely looked like training level work and not novice. I was so happy to hear that because we have been working sooooosososo hard on our dressage this summer. Honestly, we've barely been jumping at all. Show jumping is out hardest phase and I know that is all boiled down to holes in his flat work so I wanted to really get it right with that.

Sunday we really did have quite a nice ride. I was a bit surprised because I hadn't been onto him all week because the weather was just garbage and he also hadn't been getting as much turnout for the same reason. He was actually rather lazy to start out today so right away I focused on just getting him to march forward and get in front of my leg. One thing that he really likes to do is get a little spooky and looky in the ring to try and change the subject away from what I am asking him to do. As soon as I kind of got him going forward he starting looking around for things to spook at so I had to just put him right to work. I went back to the exercises that Jane gave us to use to establish a connection. I planted my outside hand and bent him a little to the outside until he softened then I used my inside leg to push him out and bend him a little to the inside. He didn't give me any attitude and stretched right into my hand so I went ahead into the trot almost right away. His transitions were reeeeally good today, right from our first transition to trot. He's getting to the point where he can really maintain the connection in his transitions. Pretty much as soon as we picked up the trot he stretched right down into my hand and started snorting up a storm lol. I just trotted him around long and low for a few minutes and did some big loopy figures while focusing on my position a little bit. One thing that I have discovered helps a lot with him (and several other horses that I've ridden) is to canter relatively early in my warmup. After the canter it just seems like he is always a bit more animated in his trot work and a little bit sharper and quicker to respond to my aids.

I went back to old faithful at the canter and did lots of canter, walk, canter transitions. I noticed today that I was relying a lot less on my hand and was able to get some nice balanced easy transitions from him just using my seat and leg. Despite the fact that I haven't really been taking many lessons at all lately, I think my position has improved this summer. I especially notice it in the canter where I am able to hold myself fairly upright and not "pump" with my upper body so much the way I used to. I think that is a big part of why the canter has improved so much actually. We also worked on some transitions within the gait at the trot, which I want to do a lot more of. The one thing that we are really missing in order to be ready for training level is a solid lengthening.

So that's basically where we're at. Our next outing is set to be on October 10th at radnor which will be his first recognized event :)