Hijinks Ensue

Sorry for the hiatus (again)! It's been a crazy few weeks and we've been up all sorts of wacky hijinks.

Good news! The tire on the trailer is fixed and there are now two brand spanking new tires on it. So hopefully there will be no more of that nonsense anymore. And Royal's dressage work is really coming along.

He has a really big and bouncy canter, and tends to get himself all tangled up, especially in transitions. So usually they end up being all fussy and frantic, and the canter usually suffers for it. So last week, I decided to try to start fixing that. I know that lateral yields are a big comforting exercise for him, so I incorporated a lot of those into our warm up, and kept on them going in the session. Basically I'd ask him to yield in and out on the circle, and when I asked him to canter, had the mentality that we were going to canter forever. I used a mixture of circles and straight lines: lines when he was balanced and circles when he needed to re-balance. We ended up with a nice balanced and forward canter.

This week, we first had a jumping session with a special bonus. I was participating in GISHWHES, an international scavenger hunt with a decidedly zany twist. One of the items was jumping the shark, which Royal was only too happy to help with.

He's always very patient with my shenanigans.

And as of last Thursday, it seems like all our hard work is starting to come together. I went up to ride, all prepared to work more on the canter, and it was just there. He gave me a near perfect transition when I first asked and everything went pretty smoothly from there. There was a bit of trouble with his left lead, but after an initial burst of frantic energy, he settled right in. Straight lines, circles, transitions, he was just engaged and there. So, to say I'm optimistic is quite accurate.

We also building a new shelter for the horses. I'll post pictures once it's once, but it's quite nice. Tall and long enough so all four horses should be able to stand in there to get out of the wind and snow. But for now, Steepleview! It's in less then two weeks, and I'm so excited! This year is going to be great.