Cob Jockey

I've now been riding Disco about a month, although it really hasn't been that many rides thanks to the stretch of truly awful weather we had in there. 

First time I've ridden him with the doors open. This would have sent Connor into a skittering tailspin, but Disco just looked and then carried on with his life.

 

It's amazing, even still, how quickly things have started to change. 

His transitions are getting prompter.

His steering is getting more subtle.

He's starting to carry me forward more.

 

Forwarddddddddd

 

He retains things between rides so easily. After the first time we did two repetitions of a single step of TOF with BDT, every other time I've checked in on that skill he was like "YES MA'AM I KNOW THIS ONE HAPPY TO OBLIGE." 

I even - accidentally, at first - asked for a 180 degree TOF last night for the first time and he just...did it. I moved my boot back without thinking about it while he was stopped, and he took a step. I then asked again, intentionally this time, so he knew he gave me the right answer to my leg moving in that way.

Obviously not perfect but for the first time he's strung more than a step together? What a good boy.

It's such a rush for me every time I realize he's paying attention to my body that closely, especially my seat - whether that's controlling the cadence of the posting trot or playing with down transitions that happen on seat alone. Both because he's starting to understand that, and because somehow, against all odds, I actually have the body control to make that aid make sense to him.

He looks like SUCH a geeky baby to me right now.

The biggest change - I have started riding him when there's no one else at the barn. It's not ideal, of course, it never is, but with as few people as we have in our barn, I was finding myself going too long between rides if I only ever rode when someone else was there. Consistency is so important at his age, even when we're only riding a few days a week. 

And I really shouldn't get complacent, but I trust him so much already. More than Connor in a lot of situations.

 

Cooling out on the buckle

The other big change - I've started lunging him before I get on. Not for the usual reason (to let him get some sillies out), but for the opposite - to make #slugmode easier to manage! If I lunge him, I know he's warmed up and thinking "forward" when I get on, so I can skip #slugmode and immediately start using the trot to motivate the walk, if I need to. It has helped a lot.

Haven't cantered under saddle yet (not for lack of trying). He needs to build some strength and possibly feel like he's in a larger space before he has the confidence to pick it up with a rider.

I'm having so much fun with him already. Hard to believe he's not even four yet!

When he dropped him off, the owner told me Encore had spent the last 30 days with someone local, and he admitted that it didn't turn out to be a good fit.

"I mean I've walk-trot-cantered him myself, he'd occasionally scoot if he was startled, but never did anything bad with me. But [rider] made it sound like he was bad, like almost afraid to ride him. [Rider] was just too Quarter Horsey for him I think, you can't drill these Cobs, they're too smart for that."

 

The man has done Lisa's ponies' feet for well over 20 years; he may never have owned one before Encore, but he sure does know Cobs. He's exactly right about them being too smart for drilling.

(Remind me to tell you the one sometime about the Welsh Cob that laid down with a student trainer in college (not me!), because he was being drilled and he was too smart for that. It's a good one.)

It is actually stupid how well my Dressage saddle fits him. I think it fits Encore better than it ever fit Connor even when he was fit, and that it saying something because it was a damn good fit on Connor.

The one video I saw from "the girl" was of Encore being practically chased on the lunge with a bigger man on him, his bad eye on the inside of the circle and giving off strong prey-animal-being-hunted vibes. It gave me a sense of what kind of riding he'd been exposed to at the boarding barn, and especially with the ulcers I'm sure he had, that had to have been just a LOT for him.

I've had him 10 days and been on him twice so far. The first time, we did a pony ride with Leah leading us, and I swear the poor guy was going to jump out of his skin. Every sound I made, every motion I made in the saddle was terrifying to him. You could tell he was waiting on the other shoe to drop, that he had some negative associations with riding, but all that said, he was still a very good boy and I never felt unsafe.

But like OMG doesn't he just want to be a sporthorse!

A couple days later, we did a mounting block lesson. We got all tacked up again, and we went to the mounting block and just...stood there. Click treat for standing still. Click treat for standing still while I rub him all over. Click treat for standing still while I sit on him for a few seconds. Untack him, put him away. See? Not every time you wear a saddle do you get ridden. You could see his brain going, "...huh. Okay. This is different."

Lil fella needs to develop his butt muscles!

The next day, we lunged for the first time. This again he had associations with. I could feel him assuming he would be chased on the lunge, with palpable worry. No, we will walk, I told him over and over, until he understood and started to exhale and relax. I only lunged him on the good eye side. There will be a time to push him and lunge with the bad eye on the inside, sooner rather than later so I don't develop a one-sided horse with no coping mechanisms for his vision loss, but the time for that was not the first night we lunged, when we were trying to break those negative associations.

 

That's gotta be what, like a foot overtrack? By the way, he was a superstar at lunging. His voice commands are rock solid.

Last night, though? Last night I rode him again, again with a ground person although she was only there as an emergency brake, and it felt like I had a different horse. From the moment I tacked him up you could feel that he was starting to understand that the game is different with me. His eyes were softer than I'd ever seen for any kind of work before, and dare I say curious?

This one doesn't need the hillside to look uphill, lol

Last night was the first time I had a sense for what kind of riding horse I really have because so much of the fear was gone, although he wasn't completely without nerves. I could talk and laugh without him jumping the way he did the first time I rode him. I had rudimentary steering and a very good whoa. I could bump him with my legs, even pony kick him when he was fixated on something outside and wasn't listening, and he jumped, but in place.

There's a lot of power and air time in that trot. I'm excited to ride it when the time comes.

 

It's been such a hard thing to figure out, how much to push this horse and how much patience he needs. But that he made so much progress from one ride to another was validation that I'm getting it right with him, at least so far. He learns so quickly, far quicker than any horse I've ever had, and he's open to new experiences and changing his expectations. He won't end up being a horse for everyone, but he'll definitely be an incredible horse for someone.

Ever since my lesson a few weeks ago in which I lamented my lack of core being a default, Mary has wanted to give me a lunge lesson. Being a die hard H/J lover (more J than H), the hardcore Dressage biomechanics is something she's not as familiar with, but she threw herself into learning more about it and dreaming up exercises that would help my brain find my core.

We finally got the chance last weekend, and I was shocked at how much it helped. In some ways it was better than a Mary Wanless lesson for activating my core.

At the halt, she had me start by bending forward and backward in the saddle, one vertebrae at a time, without letting go of my seat. This forced me to fire my low abs in order to keep my butt from coming off of the saddle, and is a movement familiar to me from Pilates.

Next, at the walk, she had me walk with my arms out to the side, which, fine, but THEN she had me also take my legs off of the saddle so that the only points of contact were my pubic bone and my two seatbones. This was fascinating: just when I thought I'd discovered all of the muscles that my brain had previously shut off the neural pathways to, this exercise helped me discover these seemingly teeny tiny muscles in my bikini line I'd never noticed before.

Mary immediately commented how much better my hips were following the movement when I took my legs off.

Those muscles felt exhausted within moments of picking my legs off of the saddle. I envisioned them at the time as short tabs coming off of my legs and attaching to the body about an inch onto my torso, like a Velcro tab. Looking at anatomy charts, I think what I was feeling was the Pectineus, a muscle involved in, go figure, hip stabilization.

At this point, I got off for a bit so Aeres could get some energy out on the lunge before we continued. She wasn't bad, but she clearly hates people being unbalanced on her, so this was not a friendly exercise to her brain. Even after lunging we mostly stuck to the walk to be fair to her, although I'm looking forward to repeating all of this on Connor, who, for better and very much for worse, DGAF if you bounce around on his back.

Aeres to Jen: "I literally hate this, you sack of potatoes"

When I got back on, Mary handed me the Equicube and told me to hold it over my head. Just doing this gave me a lot of awareness of my scapula and lats, as well as my core muscles starting way up under my boobs all the way down to my belly button.

And then that escalated to holding it over my head with my legs off the horse again.

 

Developing awareness is one thing, but I really need the high tone, blown-out-balloon feeling in my midsection to become a default if I have a hope of riding Connor as effectively as CGP does. I'm looking forward to playing with these exercises on Connor over the winter and exploring them more in Pilates too.

Aeres has had a big couple of days even though I haven't ridden her yet. On Monday, I gave her a thorough grooming and started to pull her mane. Not only did the length need to go, but she's a very badly faded black with orange highlights, which also needed to go.

On Tuesday we finished up mane pulling and also banged her tail. I sent Mary this (terrible) photo and she was like "...we gotta do something about that orange forelock. Like, yesterday."

 

On Wednesday, she got her teeth done. My vet was coming out anyway, and I'd noticed her dropping lots of feed while eating, so I wanted that done before I put a bit in her mouth. "Nothing crazy" going on in there according to my vet, although I think her definition of crazy is crazier than mine, lol. She definitely needed done, so that was money well spent.

Then Wednesday night Mary came out armed with a box of $2.99 hair dye, Vaseline, saran wrap and hair ties.

Turns out she'd never done this before, but she totally acted like she had. First, she put Vaseline on Aeres's star to protect it from the hair dye, then she applied the dye, and then she thought she might wrap the forelock in Saran wrap but Aeres was not having that.

While we waited, we used whitening shampoo on her white socks (OMG. I am reminded that Connor's socks aren't and never will be pure white, sob. Aeres's socks got blindingly white) and threw her on the lunge line in a halter to watch her move for the first time.

Mary's face watching her go was like: 

She has a really nice free swinging walk, overtracks huge at the walk and the trot, and an athletic canter. Objectively speaking, she moves better than Connor does even if she's not as pretty as he is standing still. But what really got us excited was lunging her over a tiny crossrail, which she'd clearly never done before. The first couple times, she just trotted big over it like "WTF do I do with my feet??"

The next time around, I asked her to jump from a canter, and she jumped it really well but got a not-perfect distance, then the time after that, she nailed it. Not only could you watch her think through the question in real time and make adjustments each go around until it was perfect, she was bold to the fence and chill about it, with happy thinking ears.

This immediately got the wheels turning in my head.

I suspect this horse may have gotten a bit burnt out on Dressage at her previous home for a couple of (entirely theoretical, since I haven't been on her yet) reasons. If that ends up being the case, and if she ends up enjoying jumping and showing talent for it, and if I have my best jumping wingman on board to help me with her all the time, I'm not going to say no. Heck, all I've got is a jump saddle at home anyway since my Dressage saddle is with Connor, so may as well just roll with it.

I do know for a fact she is the undisputed side eye champion of the world 😂

I got the Equisense a couple of weeks ago, but given that I couldn't use it at the show and then Connor got a week almost completely off, I've only just now started to get to use it.

The real value of the thing will come when I have enough rides to compare and view trends and anomalies over time.  But so far, what I've found most interesting is the difference between when I'm lunging and when I'm riding.  I've been capturing both as separate "sessions" so I can see them clearly.

This was my first ride back after Connor's week off.

Lunging:

I love how it thinks he jumped something.  I mean, all four feet did leave the ground, but it was a sassy half-assed buck.

Riding:

Ooooh boy.  I knew I favored the right side but I had no idea it was this bad until I got this data.

Lunging:


Riding:


Besides the fact that we are not ambiturners, (ha.  ha...), I'm interested in how much more elevated his front end is without me on his back, and how all of his stride frequency numbers are higher without me on his back.  Obviously higher stride frequency is not always a good thing, what we really want is more suspension and fewer strides, but uh, we're not there yet.  Right now, the reduced stride numbers correlate to what NK referred to as "something about the way you sit on him shuts his engine down."

It's going to be really interesting to see what else this thing shows me!

In my post on Monday, I asked the blogging community for ideas to help my long, inefficient warmup.  There were some really good suggestions in the comments!  I decided to try a couple this week.

On Monday night, I tried just asking for forward from the very beginning, which did give me the impulsion I needed, but my position didn't hold, my reins got long, and Connor got tense.  I've been videoing every single ride now that the Pixio is so easily accessible, and I actually didn't realize my reins were as long as they were until I saw the tape - it was bad.

Ugh, no, just no. Everything about this is bad.

So I looked through the other suggestions thinking "How do I get forward but take my ineffective self out of the equation?"  I decided to try lunging with side reins before my lesson on Tuesday, as d. Safin suggested.  Focusing on forward.

Side reins were suuuuuuuper loose.  Pony in horse side reins.

In summary: IT WORKED.  I did about four minutes each side (thanks, Pixio), just until I had gotten his customary "tranter" out of the way and I saw him reach down for the bit at the walk and trot.  We still had some warming up to do after, but it was not nearly as long as normal, and not nearly as difficult to get through.

Then!

Because he was ready to work pretty much immediately when my trainer got there, we were able to really get stuff done.  We focused on keeping his gaits active and punchy, especially the hind legs in the canter, and oh. em.  gee.  did we have fun.

FUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

We did a lot with the canter as well, and he was so steady in it, I was even able to change my whip without him reacting.  (Ignore the sticky beginning of this canter - we have a spot with REALLY deep and shifty footing, I try to avoid it generally but didn't here.)



So as always, we'll constantly re-evaluate our methods, but this seems to be really effective and we'll continue to use it as long as it's this effective.  Thanks to the blogging community and especially d. Safin for the suggestion!

I only ended up riding for about five minutes in last night's lesson, but Connor ended up getting more accomplished without me than he could have with me.

Let me explain.

The windswept look he gave me when I pulled up.

All of the horses were nuts yesterday (warm weather, tornadic storms blowing later) and Connor was no exception.  His answer to everything I asked in my warmup was an emphatic "NO THANK YOU."  He was looking for excuses and trying to shoot out from under me.

My trainer saw this and said we should try something related, but very different from what we've been doing lately.  It was another Jean Luc Cornille exercise, this time a lunging exercise.

She ran the line through the inside bit ring, and instead of running it over his head, she ran it back to the saddle where she had attached a grab strap to the D rings.  She ran it under the strap, then back over, down the other side and clipped it on the outside bit ring.

She explained that this mimicked the feel of the riders hands more closely, and that this exercise is all about letting him find his balance.

Instead of the usual 20m circle, she made a square using half of the large outdoor arena, with approximately a 12-15m circle in each corner of the square.  In the beginning, there were also circles in the middle of the "long" side so that he didn't lose his balance when he didn't really have it yet.  Toward the end, we could actually get four circles instead of 6.

(To the right) She held the line exactly like you'd hold the reins in your right hand, with a loop in the line, and held the lunge whip in her left hand.  Because his prerogative was racing forward as fast as possible at the moment, she actually crossed her arms with the lunge whip under the line and the whip in front of him.

"I like this exercise because it gets them thinking and engaged, and doesn't just wear them out.  It's not lunging for the sake of lunging."

It was so interesting.  In the beginning, Connor looked like a scale, with the platform on the front of his body lower than the platform on the back.  He was going fast and somewhat braced and looking.

What Connor looked like to the right in the beginning (lower platform is his forelegs).

Gradually, (she really waited him out) he began working over his back and the scale became more even, back to front.  When that happened, his forefeet also took slower steps, and he licked and chewed the bit down.  Because I was on the ground, I could see this all very clearly.

Some things I noticed:
- Even on the lunge, he bends better to the right than the left.
- Even on the lunge, he would get it for a few steps, then throw his head up or move his body in some other intentional way in order to move differently.
- But after about 30 minutes of this (walk and trot), he started staying in the balanced/back lifted position and not losing it.  So maybe I need to wait that out too.

She turned him over to me 3/4 of the way through so she could guide me through learning how to do the exercise.  I really had to walk fast in between the circles to move down the straight side of the square, but not so fast as to startle him.  He did offer canter for both her and me a couple of times, which she did not intend to do with him today, but it was so lovely and balanced she let him go.

By the end, he'd trotted and cantered in self-carriage in a very consistent cadence for a long time with no signs of being taxed physically.  "He's really in better shape than I give him credit for," she said.  "Or he's playing me under saddle..."  We laughed.

Sweaty pony

I'm interested to see where this takes us.

Connor was so wet from rain after I finished my stalls today that I didn't feel like tacking him up, so I took him into the indoor for some lunging and then free lunging.  I wanted to work on walking up to him at liberty and controlling his body from afar (still working on the hard-to-catch thing).  He started out careening around the lunge circle like a crazy man, so I put some poles and then a small crossrail in his way.  After he'd done that twice, I turned him loose and sat down in a chair for a few minutes while he walked around.

Next, with the crossrail still set up on the rail at H, and Connor all the way on the other side of the arena at F, I gave him the same verbal cue to trot that I do on the lunge.  He turned around and trotted down the long side, then the short side, then took the crossrail all by himself and cantered away.  I was nowhere near the fence and did not encourage that in any way.  Even better, he kept going and came back around to it, taking it two more times on his own before taking a break.  Here's a video of his last and best attempt, landing on the correct lead and throwing in a sassy head toss afterward for good measure:


It was fun finally getting to see him jump (I'm always riding!), to see that he enjoys it enough to do it of his own volition with no encouragement, and to see him work out distances on his own without me helping him out.  After he did it himself, I asked him to do it a few times to cement the 'I control you at liberty' lesson.  On his third attempt, he took it too fast and didn't turn early enough, and ended up jumping the highest part of the jump by the rail, knocking the rail down, but he clearly learned his lesson because after that, he never made either of those mistakes again.  Video:


He's learning!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh I'm so excited for the clinic this weekend I can't take it!

Fail.

Connor and I had a fantastic lesson tonight.  He finally knows the shoulder-in square groundwork exercise well enough that she taught that to me, and then we did a short lunging session in which she really had me work on sending the shoulder out and getting him to bend through the ribcage.  It's funny, all of my problems with my upper body under saddle directly translate when I'm lunging him.  I am continually astounded by how identical good lunging and good riding is. 

 Then, we had what I would call the first semblance of a normal lesson we've had in quite a while.  In the beginning, he gave me some of the best walk work I've ever gotten out of him, and we continued to work on square halts.  At the trot, she had me do an exercise that proved extremely effective at getting him balanced and in both reins equally.  We started by doing M-X-F and K-X-H loops (and switched directions regularly), and after we were doing well with that, she had us add a 10m circle at X before continuing with the loop.  If he wasn't paying attention to my outside aids, was leaning on the left rein, or was not as balanced as he should be, it was 1) difficult and 2) ended with me letting him run into the wall (only if it was in fact his fault for not listening, and not mine for not using my aids effectively).  We saw some real improvement with that exercise, and ended when we had a balanced horse moving nicely through his back.

Not impressed.

Despite the fact that we have only jumped once since the May Cathy clinic, I think she's going to see a ton of progress in our jumping.  As my trainer said tonight, he's not doing more advanced movements, but he is moving in a much more advanced and educated way, and therefore she is very curious to hear what Cathy has to say about him this time.  We are getting closer to having the pony we need in order to begin those more advanced movements, and since we are getting back to the indoor, which is a proper Dressage arena, I think this winter will see us tackling them for the first time.

So pumped!

I'm not one for symbols and signs, but it was totally fitting to watch a 4 second shooting star dive into the horizon in front of my car as I drove home from my lesson tonight.  It was awesome.

Finally, we're seeing real progress!  Real progress in the form of working through his back and using himself properly both on the lunge and under saddle.  Real progress in the form of this:



He's NEVER foamed or mouthed the bit like that before.  There was so much foam, he sounded like a little suckerfish or suction cup going around the arena.  So much, it was dripping onto his boots.  My typically stoic trainer was ecstatic, and her enthusiasm and his progress combined to relieve so much of the equine-related stress I've felt over the past month.  I was stressed over his backward slide in training, stressed over the peeing issue, and stressed over both things affecting personal relationships at the barn.  I needn't have been, but I was a basket case all the same.

She kept saying things like, "He is really stepping under himself!" and "This is really promising."  How good does that feel after a month of "I think you should stick to lunging between lessons for a while,"?  AMAZING!  Under saddle, he felt glorious, like a little balanced and forward moving freight train with muscles that allowed him to carry himself and move into the bridle.  I still had to focus very hard on keeping the weight even in both reins, and he did try to lean on me a bit, but I had my abs tight and my back flat and all his attempt did was cause him to run into my hands.  "Ha!  Gotcha, you little jerk!" I said.  I was elated to feel so many concepts in practice that my trainer and Nancy K had tried to instill in us over the past ten months.

Our lesson tonight consisted of a lot of walk-halt transitions as I tried to convince his wayward right hind (seeing a pattern here?  That's the weak side.) to step up next to the left.  He prefers to dramatically rest it and drop the hip every time we stop.  For the next few practice rides we are to lunge until he gets to the point where I want him (balanced, using his hind end and topline properly, and moving large, but not running) and then I can hop on and do more walk and trot work.  The lunge part of the lesson is to get shorter and shorter as he does what we want more quickly, due to either training or muscle or both, and my riding time will steadily increase.

I am so pumped and so proud of my little guy!  And I would be a little remiss if I didn't also say that I was proud of my trainer for catching it and putting us back on the right track so competently.  I shudder to think of what I might have created if it weren't for her.

YAY!!!!

I’m going to make this brief since I only have a few minutes left before leaving work for the barn.  I had a lesson on Saturday in which my trainer made sure I was doing the lunging properly.  There really is a lot to it when you’re using it as a teaching/training tool and not just for non-riding exercise or to let the horse blow off some steam.  She made sure I was holding the “rein” properly and complimented the timing of what essentially amounted to half-halts.  After that, I felt much more prepared to tackle it on my own and start working with him more often.

My Thursday lesson was moved to Saturday this week, so instead I went to the barn on Thursday and worked Connor on the lunge in the manner Naomi had shown me, but I had not yet tried.  I was feeling awkward about the unfamiliar way of lunging, and a bit discouraged, and seeing this set up from someone else's lesson did not help:

For the first time in my life, I am just dying to jump.  Knowing that I can't even ride right now makes that really hard, but I'm staying focused on the goal of having a balanced horse and trying not to let those thoughts get into my head.

I had to lunge him in the indoor, which I'm sure did not help, but unsurprisingly, my lunge session did not go as well as my trainer's.  He was not as relaxed through either the suppling groundwork or on the line, with and without side reins.  I tried me best to keep the shoulder out going to the right, and to use the line and the whip as my inside rein and driving aid, but generally just did not feel comfortable or accomplished doing it.  I think a little practice with her is in order.

I'm glad we're doing this, but it's so challenging mentally to come to the barn in jeans, and have boarders and friends come up to me and say, "What, you're not riding today?" and to explain "No, I've created a muscle imbalance in Connor due to riding really one-sidedly, and we're working through that on the lunge for now."  Everyone gives me the sort of sympathetic look you'd give someone with a laid-up horse.  And I guess he is actually sort of lame, in a sense.  They understand, but it's still just hard.  I can't wait until I can swing a leg over him again, but I'm being good for now!

In my last lesson wrap-up post, I detailed how my laterally-unbalanced body has led to unbalanced riding, which has led to an unbalanced horse.  Since then, my trainer has worked with Connor twice, doing ground work and lunging in side-reins in order to both build muscle and teach him how to use himself.  Today was another lesson, only I didn't ride, just learned how she is working him so that I can do it myself.

We are the furthest thing from a gadget-using barn, which is why my trainer and I had a good laugh over the very effective and somewhat gadget-y setup he's going in right now.  You'll see it more clearly in the video, but he's wearing a surcingle, his bridle without reins, side reins, a pad in order to make his pony-sized surcingle fit, and a Horse Hugger.  The Horse Hugger is an interesting and effective piece of equipment that goes around the neck and then drapes around the back legs, above the hocks, to serve as a gentle reminder to the horse to step under himself.

She started out by doing ground-work to get him warmed up and thinking about stepping under himself.  I've talked about it before: the front feet stay on a large square while she asks the hind legs to engage and step away from her with impulsion without going forward.  She also ideally wanted him to be stretching down with his neck since he's gotten so good at just curling and not using his back.
On the lunge line, she told me to hold the line like a rein and use it as the inside rein: same tension, same cues, and to use it in conjunction with my "legs" - the whip - to apply a sort of half-halt anytime I sent a cue across the line.  She was firm about sending him forward into the biggest trot he could manage without cantering since impulsion is one of our problems, and I had to keep reminding myself to focus on learning how she was doing it instead of watching him.  I've never seen him move that well before - ever.  I was floored.

To the right, his poorer side, I was fascinated to see that he is actually swinging his hindquarters to the outside on the circle to avoid using them.  In the video, you will see that the outside hind actually tracks completely outside of the outside fore (it's especially obvious in the very last frame).  So much of what she wanted me to do in this direction was sending the shoulders out in order to help with that.  I saw improvements, but a definite decrease in quality from the left side.  Hence, the problem.

So this is my riding for now, until we can get him fixed, and me fixed.  I'm enjoying it almost as much, knowing that we're working toward solving the problem (and getting closer to jumping again sometime!)

Green grass again, finally!

*Edit as of 12:26pm: they are now working!  Sorry about that!

Finally, some videos!  They're not very good since I'm, you know, lunging and videoing at the same time, but it's something.  He's moving like a real greenie in these, with his head high and clearly moving with a lack of confidence in the deeper parts of the footing, especially at the canter.  I'm going to talk to her tomorrow about introducing side reins while lunging, since some of our goals are to continue to teach him use himself properly, and to relax the muscles on the underside of his neck.

Incidentally, if anyone local is ever interested in taking photos and/or videos for me, I'd love you forever.  There's never anyone around to do either for me.

My cues for lunging have changed since I got to this barn, with a "Walk on" to move forward, a click into the trot, and a kiss into the canter, with a downward whistle to signify coming down one gait.  I used to use words with different inflections for up and down, but I've adapted.  I like how crisp the click is, and how quickly he reacts to it.  Now I have to work on getting it to be less of a startle and more of a transition...

Side note: I normally include a lot more transitions in my lunging (if I lunge, which I don't all the time), but I was lunging for the video today.

On to the good stuff! 

Not really displaying his nice overstep here, but he wasn't warmed up yet.


We are still working on coming down from the trot.