Tuesday Mort and I touched on some of our lesson items. I especially wanted to address Mort's bending left while in the more collected frame so we worked on that some. I did some bend and counter bend as well as bringing him up and letting him stretch back down while keeping left bend. It was fairly successful, though it'll just take more hours building the muscles for him to be 100% confirmed.
We also worked a good deal more in canter than in the lesson, but played with the same ideas. I spent some time playing with a more uphill carriage. It turned out to be a little easier than the trot was, which was fun. I worked on trying to keep him straight and on track through some canter transitions each way; I even set up poles for us to stay between to really make sure I was correct in my visuals. While I could keep him between the sets of poles I still wouldn't really consider the transitions straight, but we are getting places as he only picked up the wrong lead one time. Leads definitely haven't always been easy for us, so him being pretty consistent on a straight line in the middle of the arena was good.
Wednesday was Mort's day off and I spent my afternoon trail running with Emma. We were both really tired after all of those hills and rocks to jump over. Yesterday I went out with a plan for a fun and easy ride. I can be really focused on my goals and forget to give Mort some rides that are no pressure. I often do lots of walking around the property but I still include some 'work' in the ride. The goal yesterday was strictly easy.
We started with a short walk around the property. We then did some stretchy trot in the grass arena--changing directions and bending/counter-bending. After a little more walking and playing with bend and baby leg yields we headed to the front pasture. I let Mort hand gallop the length of it twice--once on each lead. He is so much fun to just let run now that I trust him to come back easily. On our second run he came back to a trot with me just sitting down--no rein pressure or 'whoa' required. We ended our ride with more stretchy trot and walk bending in the grass.
While it wasn't strictly just loose rein walk on a trail it was 100% an easy ride for Mort and I. He never got tight over his topline or stressed. We both enjoyed the easy gallops; I couldn't help but smile. He came back to me wonderfully and was happy to go right back to stretching. He felt loose and swinging and barely broke a sweat. He'll probably end up getting today off because I have life things that are going to get in the way but I'm looking forward to the long weekend to continue to play with lifting that front end and starting to think about stringing together some test elements.
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