Yawn.

I want to apologize for my lack of interesting posts lately. Not that I ever do anything ground breaking or hanging by the seat of your pants crazy (well, there have been exceptions), but trot sets and flat work are hardly fascinating news. But this is more a training blog for me to follow my progress and the progress of my horse, so even if it makes us all yawn, at least I can go back in a year and be like, "Psh, getting ready for another BN? So glad I'm doing Prelim now."

Ok, let's not get ahead of ourselves here....

Today's boring blog post is on a long (1hr) dressage school. I wanted to go on a 30 minute walk trail ride to warm the beastie up, but I checked his shoes as I was picking his feet and both are just a smidgum loose. I also nipped a nail off from his left shoe that was starting to come out. Jeeze, it has been four whole weeks since he got done! Knock on wood, at least they're still on there at all. He's on the list to get done Tuesday.

We headed to the indoor and put in fifteen minutes of walk work--counter bend, leg yielding, and a few baby steps of shoulder in. He started out with a really nice trot, but then Sue and Sunny came down to join us and we had to go back to the walk to regain some focus and try again. His trot never came back to where we started, but he did throw in a few good moments when we worked on trot-halt-trot transitions.

There was a square set up in the middle of the ring (8'X8') so I stuck him in there to practice turns on the forehand. He was okay to the right, but to the left his hind end got stuck. He could turn his head all the way to his hip (yay, carrot stretches!), but his butt did not want to move. Even with several sharp jabs with my spur, he was adamant he couldn't do it. Probably time for another chiro or massage session, but it will have to wait until the next paycheck.

We were getting ready to canter and five campers came into the indoor to ride. Why they didn't go to the empty, giant outdoor I don't know. We managed to sneak in a really kick ass canter to the left as they got their horses ready, then had to pull up multiple times cantering to the right to avoid collisions with the oblivious "riders". BO finally pulled in and kicked them out to the outdoor so we finished our right canter then headed up to, unfortunately, join them when the barn help needed to get to the quarantine stall with the tractor. I put in another fifteen minutes of trot and canter work with my stirrups pulled. Canter work was awesome, trot work left a lot to be desired. I know he's great at shows where it counts, but I really wish I could get some consistently good trot work out of this horse.

helping clean up trip's hay while waiting for his turn in the wash stall.

I think tomorrow will be a ground work day. Longing, lateral work in-hand, and general manners. I'll throw in my own try at a good massage while I'm at it. This Sunday is two weeks until Bucks so once Bobby gets new shoes on, we'll hopefully start doing more exciting things.

my horse knows the way to carry the sleigh...
err, or the way to his paddock with no lead rope.

In not so boring news, some good vibes are needed for Sue's other horse, Gabby. She's currently battling vasculitis in her RH for the second time in a year and things are not looking good this time around. She's 22yo. this year and this might be her undoing.