I am very pleased to report that I had a much more successful ride on Fred yesterday than I did on Monday. I decided, just in case he wanted to be naughty again, that I would put the draw reins on him. I find that I don't even have to use them at all but just having them there sort of keeps him from challenging me quite as much. I also didn't ride with the spurs because I don't want to rely on them and I am not sure I trust my leg quite enough. I did carry my whip, however, and I had to give him a couple taps in the beginning to wake him up and let him know that I meant business. He was a little bit slow to relax over his back, but I blame that on the ride the previous day. I definitely argued with him too much and over corrected him a few times and I think that made him a little nervous. I think that one thing I really need to work on is remembering not to keep my leg on all the time. I have to give him an aid, then take the leg off. I think I tend to just squeeze all the time then just squeeze harder when I need to give him an aid. That's why he's not as sharp off of my aids as I'd like him to be.

He wasn't really softening his back at the trot right away so I did a couple circles at canter in each direction and that helped. Once I got him stretching in the trot a bit I really worked on sending him forward and trying to get him really pushing from behind. His trot felt excellent, he felt very swingy and loose and supple. His trot is SOOO much bigger than it was a year ago. Once I felt like I'd gotten his butt underneath him a little bit I played with changing the frame and asking him to carry himself with his neck up and his poll higher. I am just starting to ask him to carry himself up more as I feel like he's strong enough behind now to do it. This step in the training has always been sort of a stumbling block for me because I was never really sure how exactly to get the horse into a more uphill carriage. I realize that all I really have to do is harry my hands a little higher, thus positioning the bit higher, and push him to reach for the bit in its new position. As long as I just keep my hand really soft and keep him in front of my leg he starts to carry himself. I would only ride him in this frame for a minute or 2 at a time then I'd go on a long rein and let him stretch. I was very pleased with how responsive he was and how relaxed he stayed.

I really need to start doing more lateral work with him to really get his hind legs pushing more. He needs to learn to be more relaxed about the shoulder-in and stuff like that so that is our next step. I really think I want to move him somewhere with an indoor for the winter so that I can keep working on strengthening him and keep him at least somewhat fit so we're not starting from square 1 in the spring. I'd like to just go ahead and start him out at training level in the spring.

Kate was in the ring when I was riding yesterday and she thought that he looked really good. She said that when I first brought him there that he kind of always just looked like he was running a bit but that now he looks like he's much softer in his back and stepping under with his hind legs. She said that she thinks his dressage looks about ready for Training and she said that right now she's give his trot a 7 so that's not bad. And I think that if I keep working on it over the winter that he'll come out in the spring ready to be competitive. I don't want to do more than the required 4 trainings simply because it's expensive to compete at a lot of events and also I don't really think he'll need to do a ton. If he's as easy about Training as he was about Novice, I don't see any reason why we can't work towards Prelim at the end of next year. He'll be 6, which is still relatively young for Prelim, but I don't think it'll be much of a challenge for him as far as the movements on the dressage tests and the height of the fences.

Right now I feel as though his dressage and his XC are strong and just the SJ needs some polishing up. I also want to work on that some this winter and maybe go to some of those little jumper shows to practice that.

Tomorrow my first class is cancelled so I am going to head over and ride in the AM first thing. I'm going to jump him tomorrow and I want to work on some of the things that gave us problems at Radnor. I want to set up an in and out off of a turn and maybe a long bending line to a wide-ish oxer to work on not letting him get strung out going down a long 6 or 7 stride line. I am excites for waredaca this weekend, I think it's going to be fa good one!