Just sleep on it.

bm's pony pebbles.
just because she's cute.

I braved the nasty heat and made it out to the barn between horse camp lessons. I set up three canter poles down the middle of the arena to work through if the stretchy trot failed me once again.

For the first ten minutes, I worked with Bobby at the walk. Stretch down, collect up. Repeat....again and again and again. Then we moved on to the trot. I started with a nice working trot to the right in his semi-fancy dressage frame. As we approached A where we were asking him to start stretching down yesterday, he offered to drop his head and I instantly slipped my reins almost to the buckle. Aaaand....

HE STRETCHY TROTTED ALL THE WAY AROUND THE ARENA!

Stretchy trot, you are our bitch!

He got a million and a half "GOOD BOY!"s as he went around, and then I picked my reins back up, went around once, and asked him to stretch down again. And he did! Two awesome stretchy circles in a row before we switched direction and did it all over again. I guess he just needed to sleep on it? I don't know if he's uncannily smart, or....what? Whatever his excuse, I'll take it!

I pulled out Training 1, read through it all the way for the first time ever (literally--I've been so slacking on this), and then ran through it. The canter to the stretchy trot to the normal trot to the walk (right?!) was a little rushed and disorganized, but I was so giddy he actually stretched right down that I didn't even pick my reins back up until A...when we were supposed to be walking. It was good enough for me for the first time straight through so I called the dressage quits and moved on to playing with the poles.

We cantered through them several times, trying to establish a good pace. As always, I was bringing him in too slow over and over. I finally got it kind of sorted out and raised the middle pole to a 2' vertical. The first few times, he was too slow and scrambled through. Who would have guessed? I finally kicked him on until I felt he was going too fast, and he skipped right through. Sigh. One day I'll learn. Maybe?

spyder!

BO asked if I'd stick Spyder on the longe before I left to see if he was still off. He got kicked really hard about a week ago and was pretty ouchy, but he seems fully recovered and was sneakily trying to jump the ground poles as he went around. He's absolutely one of my favorite horses in the barn. He's really big, really green, and really pushy, but just look at him! He's such a mooch and lover, even if he is a little bit of a rogue.

"i get my cookie now, yes?"