Stressage

Since our FABULOUS jumping on Monday night I have been doing some flat work. Last night I was teensy bit sore so I figured Spyke would be too so we had a fairly easy ride. We just did lots of long and low and transitions within the pace (asking for longer and shorter strides) He was very, very good and even did lengthening and shortening in canter really nicely (in the past it proved very difficult to get him balanced again after a longer canter).

Tonight I made him work a bit harder and I really tried to get him forward and up off the forehand. It was quite a mixed evening as he did some fairly hideous stuff (including a good buck when I tapped with the dressage whip). However after the 'tap episode' he picked himself up and was much more forward which was great. I just need to learn to control the forward-ness now.

I wore a pair of baby spurs tonight and I was very excited to actually get, for the very first time, some movement off the leg. The best thing was it was just the back end that responded when asked so we are making some progress. :-) I finished with some halt-trot, trot- halt transitions and he did a couple of really, really fantastic halt - trot transitions. He really used his back end and back. It felt amazing so I stopped at that.