schooling 20-03-12

Schooling session at lunchtime today.

Warmed up on a long rein in WTC.  He started to come nicely into a round stretch in trot after having a canter so then had a walk break before picking up walk shoulder in on the circle.  I think he hates all this sideways stuff - he seems to find it so hard.

So we did our walk SI then a bit of trot SI on the L rein - he just cant keep the power coming through from behind in the trot work and really seems to struggle to bring the inside hind underneath him - it's in both directions so not sure it's truely related to his iffy right hind or that he's just never been asked to carry himself like this before.  We moved on to trot stretch deep and round, keeping it steady and not letting him fall onto his forehand and he seemed to do this nicely.

We then did some work on the canter, trying to get good, uphill transitions into the canter and then riding the canter forwards and uphill - harder to keep him round than when he's burying himself onto his forehand but need to keep working on this.  Got some nice walk to canters and a good canter to walk.  Then worked on trot-walk-trot transitions and he was driving me a bit nuts by resisting once he came back to walk so then being against the hand in the upwards transition.  Need to practice these as riding BE92 at AUW and MK.  Need to get him going straight and forwards into the contact in the walk-trot transitions.  He wants to wiggle all over the place.  Eventually got a nice one so let him rest for a bit.

Then onto the right rein - repeated the walk and trot work in SI then onto some canter work keeping him uphill, did a few trot-canter transitions trying to improve the uphillness and roundness in these.  Then some trot-walk-trots which were better on this rein than the other!  Finally let him have a good stretch on this rein and he did a lovely one, staying steady, not running onto his forehand, soft and flexible into the right rein.

He worked hard, nearly an hour and was sweaty at the end.  He was very forwards today which was nice - gave me more to work with.  Just a constant battle to get him to soften and submit - it gets so wearing ;(