Weekend Re-Cap

     Mort and I had a fairly good ride on Friday.  It was honestly much the same as Thursday, except that Mort was a lot more relaxed to begin with.  We rode about 45 minutes and didn't work on anything particularly new or exciting.  I am definitely a human who tries to keep life easy the week or two before a show.  Anything that Mort doesn't know now he won't know then.  I have been trying to add a few more trot to halt transitions in during each ride just to make them quieter and they're becoming more of a habit for him. 

     I gave Mort the day off on Saturday.  Emma and I did a 6 mile trail run over some rough terrain (maybe too rough as my achilles tendon on my left foot has been complaining ever sense).  Steven and I had tickets to Roots 'n Blues 'n BBQ festival so we spent the afternoon and evening eating terribly delicious food, listening to some great artists, and hanging with friends.  The weather was perfect and I'm sure Mort didn't mind an extra day just grazing in the pasture. 

     Sunday was a busy day at the barn; five horses were going to a local Western and Saddleseat show.  I was planning on getting to the barn a little after eight and they all were planning on heading out at eight so I just asked BM to throw Mort a flake of hay and leave him inside for me.  He was definitely a little upset about being left inside, but only showed it via some dancing in the cross ties.  It was chilly, so I opted for a bareback ride.

     Mort was definitely ready to do something and gave me a huge walk that felt like it was on the verge of falling into a trot.  We spent a lot of time at the walk.  Then spent a lot of time doing trot/walk transitions and lateral work.  I only did a little canter but made sure he gave me clean transitions--bad canter transitions while bareback are dumb. 

     I mainly focused on improving his left bend while trying to keep him adjustable in the neck.  We've mainly got the left bend = falling out on the right shoulder fixed, but now he's learned that if he retracts his neck and just bends in the neck he can avoid me.  It's always fun when ponies come up with new ways to avoid working hard.  So I would switch between asking for bend and asking for leg yield.  Just about every time he would relax I'd let him stretch his head and neck down for a couple strides to let him know that left bend is easy and happy and totally the best-est.  Hopefully we can get the retracted neck bend situation under wraps (and then have him come up with something else for me to figure out).