Merrist Wood schooling

So, Tue was BE SJ training.  Wed morning did some interval training before work - 3 x 3min canter in the school with 90secs walking in between each set.  Warmed up with 10mins walk and 4mins trot then 1min walk before starting canter work.  After final set he recovered his breath in about 10mins (Ginny Leng book says recovering between 7mins and 14mins is fine)  It was bloody hard work on my legs and back and also got me out of breath so definitely something to do again but would rather do it in the field than small school and dodgy surface.  Would benefit from being a more forward going canter too.  I know he can easily canter a dressage canter for that long but need to get him going more XC speed to up fitness.

Thur went for a lovely hack in short sleeves and no gloves in lovely sunshine and pony actually broke a sweat from a 30min hack although we did rag it round a route that normally takes more like 40mins.

Today had farrier this morning for first stud holes of the yr then took him to Merrist Wood this evening.  The arenas were set up for tomorrow's BD so two 20x40m arenas with solid white boards - fab for practising.  Started in the arena by the mirrors - I soooo wish I had mirrors - they really help you see what you're doing esp in the lateral work.  Warmed up in the same way as we started at the Simon clinic as it went so well.  So, leg yield into centre line, 1/2 circle to track and shoulder in then halts in the shoulder in.  Then half pass in from 20m circle to walk pirouette.  Into trot, intially getting him bit rounder and deeper to relax then picking him up.  Did get some nice trot and canter transitions on the right rein although they're still a bit intermittent for my liking.  Fortunately the new BE test (95) has no trot-walk-trots in it!  Then we moved down to the other end of the school to use the other arena.  Plan was just to trot in as if we were going to go straight into doing a test but got near the far end and he had a complete flid, head in the air, tense as anything.  Did manage to work through it though, had to be quite firm asking for inside flexion and moving him off my inside leg but it worked.  Then came round on the right rein and someone had left one of the letters from the wall leant up against the side of it facing the wrong way so just a rectangle of cardboard - v innocently sitting there.  I was in trot and he just suddenly launched into space!  Did imagine biting the dust but fortunately he just stopped and caught me!  So then we had to spend 5 mins trotting around establishing it wasn't going to kill him.  What I am really pleased with though is that he responded in the same way as on the left rein, he moved off my inside leg and responded to inside flexion.  This is huge progress.  Before he would always have resisted right flexion esp in a tense situation but today he was happy to submit.  He has been like this now for the last 3wks or so and I am loving it!  Cant wait to get my new dressage saddle and really crack on with the dressage.  Once we had finally settled him down we ran through BE95 which rides very nicely.  Felt like he did some really nice, straight centre lines.  Canter work is easy and we had nice transitions.  Need to improve the two 1/2 20m trot circles and keeping the softness on the change of rein across the diagonal so something to work on next couple of wks but otherwise v good.  We are riding this test next Sun in combined training and also on the Wed before T/down at MW so plenty of practice.  Then ran through the canter work in the other new test BE106.  Did a lovely soft trot serpentine to start with and then nice canter work.  Finished with stretchy trot on both reins - really pleased with him.  Looking forwards to jumping tomorrow!