Today was Dopie's 7th birthday!
He got to celebrate it by doing his first real dressage school since his vacation. Womp womp.
- Was feeling lit so only did a lap of walk each direction (while trying to keep him from breaking into the trot) before trotting.
- At the trot, I usually let him stretch down to whatever degree he wants, but I wanted him to get to work today. He knows I almost never say no to a stretch so he can definitely use that against me, and the second I start to pick my reins back up he'll be like, "Nooo, nope, not done stretching tho!" and yank the reins back out to drop his head to the ground. Sorry, bro. Sometimes you have to do other work, too. This time, each time he'd start to tug at the reins to say he wanted a stretch, I'd half halt and then lift him up with my legs. He finally got it and went around big and bold and up.
- Then we had our stretch break.
- Finally got back to the canter after vacation! Again, he wanted to just go but I made him focus instead on being super round and bent slightly to the inside. We don't pick up the canter with our head in the air anymore. Ever. That is no longer allowed for even one stride. He was actually really good for that, and both canters I felt like my position was super locked in.
- To the right, he needs to start out big and then be packaged up to the canter I'm looking for.
- To the left, he has to start out curled into a little tiny collected ball with a two inch canter and then let out. Otherwise he wants to activate that ugly under neck and flop around hollow and flat like a broken gaited horse.
- Finished with some sitting trot. One of my goals is to work on keeping my leg long instead of drawing it up every time I do anything. Amazing how easy it is to stretch into position when your horse is relaxed and doing his job happy and forward. My position came to me so easily and Dopie trucked along with little input.
- He did start to chomp a bit when I asked for the shoulder-in and haunches-in, but he stayed soft in his back and forward.
- Got to eat a bucket of carrots and candies when he was done.
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