Day 8

8 February 2012
Today we were back at it.  I rode the pony while the mare I was riding next had her farrier appointment.  I love it when timings just work out like that.  I realized I'd gone about my previous ride in a bit of the wrong direction.  Arty didn't fully understand the bend and release in the walk, so it would be ridiculous to expect him to get it in the trot.  He had the general idea in the walk, but not quite enough for it to translate into the trot.  Today I set about perfecting the bend & release in the walk, then moved to the trot.  He was still a little resistant, but that's definitely to be expected.  Overall, it felt like wonderful progress.  He's come a long, long way in just a week.
The footing was awful, so I only had a really small area that met my footing requirements.  Issues with riding outside in the middle of winter.  I did however manage to fit in a wee bit of canter, and his left was good but the right was weak.  I plan on free lunging him to do a quick examination of how he picks up and carries each lead at liberty.
Our next week will be centered on muscle building, responsiveness, and maintaining our bend/straightness work.

Oh, and there was a little cavaletti left in the ring, so I hopped him over it  just out of curiosity.  It was... awkward.  He stuttered, came in deep, and popped it. Lucky it barely made 18"!  He's always required a fair bit of setting up to get his spots right, so mehaps if I can pop some muscle on him, allowing him to find his spots without my help will  be another thing to work on.