I had a very nice ride yesterday. Whew! Thankfully after my hard fall on Thursday we spent a fair amount of time going back to work regain our confidence. That helped my nerves when I got on yesterday morning. Clipper was really pretty relaxed even though he hadn’t been worked since that fateful Thursday. He may have been turned out on Friday but I don’t know for certain. In any event, he was pretty mellow during the warm up hack and didn’t spook at anything until a kid started dragging lawn chairs around the outside of the arena. When the kid stop, Clipper resumed his half-asleep demeanor. I actually had a hard time keeping him from breaking from a lovely slow canter. This canter is definitely progress. He’s learning how to carry himself. When I first started riding him in January, he galloped around the arena because he didn’t know how to carry himself. Hours and hours of circles, transitions, and encouragement has paid off.
After the warm up, we went over some easy jumps, always beginning with the trot. After the easy jumps we tried a bending line: trot in, canter 5 strides on a bend to a small vertical. When he landed on the wrong lead after the first trot jump, I’d bring him back to a trot before jumping the second jump. I’m not sure how many times we did that but eventually he landed on the correct lead and we cantered softly around the bend to the next jump then softly cantered away. Perfect! It was hot yesterday so he was rewarded with a cool bath, lots of carrots, patting, and general fussing, which he seems to enjoy.
Love that you are back to blogging, in spite of the stress of the paper, term ending, etc. Sorry about your fall but sounds like it was a lesson within itself. What’s going on with the move to Washington? Great photos, too.