Day 107

Sooooo cold today!

We bought Harry a Christmas halter. His is green and Brie and Nina's are red. I'll have to take some pictures to show you! While I just brushed off Harry and lunged him, he lunged really well! He started off kind of crazy, but I just let him go, figured it was excess energy. He was sure full of it today, he kept pulling me while I was riding him, but I'll get to that in a bit.

I rode Brie first. It's so nice to ride Brie--she's really calmed down since I started really working with her such a long time ago, it feels like. She responds really well to weight shifting and leg yielding for turns. I'm trying to teach her how to pivot on her hind legs. It'll take some time and some figuring out what the heck I'm doing, but we'll get there. Her canter is coming along nicely too. We worked on slowing it down a bit today so she's not too much like a bat out of hell and then we worked on lead changes. She's automatic! I reverse her and she takes a couple of strides in gait to collect herself and then switches without much effort from me! Maybe she's missed her calling all along. It's the funniest thing too--when I lunge her, she trots but then when I ride her she gaits! Silly horse.

No Nina =[ Maybe tomorrow.

Harry's been having some difficulty keeping his back legs in step with the front legs this past week. So instead of trying to collect him, I let him move out and learn how to keep everything in sync that way...I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do if I'm trying to promote him going Fino, but I'd rather have him be comfortable and know what he's doing that forcing him into something just because I want it. Boy, was he pulling today! I think he's ready to be worked on just one rein, but I'll have to see about that. It was so cute, he wanted to largo really badly but then when he got up to speed he couldn't keep his back legs in time with the front at that speed either! So we just settled for a corto. Afterwards, while I was trying to cool him, I let him have a loose rein and he just corto'd around forever, completely responding to shifts in my weight for turns. It was a fantastic surprise! We did all sorts of serpentines and spelling out things in the sand. I just hope that he figures out his legs soon enough. I'm sure he will.