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 :)