Last Wed tried a new way of lunging - draw reins from bit behind elbows and up onto the withers, no roller or saddle. He seemed to go nicely like this, was really working through from behind, over-tracking well. Only thing was that he always chucked his head up in the right canter transitions. Wish he still wasn't finding this so hard to do correctly. Only did 20mins and he was sweating nicely so good quick way of exercising him in a correct manor. Will try to do this weekly.
Schooling on Friday evening - seem to remember him warming up nicely and then having a mental breakdown on the right rein again once I'd picked him up. Once we'd had a big discussion about how to go nicely he then knuckled down and produced his best stuff on both reins. Not sure why we have to have a big discussion before we can work nicely - he gets so silly.
BD at Pachesham on Saturday morning.
Warmed up nicely - must not let him curl to the left. Must try and carry hands equally in front of me and sit up. I let him do most of the warmup rounder and lower to encourage him to relax which seemed to work well as he then picked up nicely. Must not try to overbend him to the right. So used to him overbending to left that I'm trying to create the same on the right which he just cant do and I dont want that anyway!
First test: P19. Same judge as in Nov at MW last wkend. 64.09%. =3rd out of 13 in the qualifier but also beat the opens so overall =3rd out of 16. Won £2.50 lol! Only 5 marks behind the overall winner. He actually did a nice trot-canter right over X transition - amazing - he can do it when he wants! Test mix of 6's and 7's. 7766 collectives. Unbalanced canter to trot transitions, tilted head on trot circle right, she doesn't like his FWLR - 6 again, inconsistent stretch. Again, said lots to like though. Needs to be more prepared and uphill in transitions.
Then onto N22. Started off ok then managed to forget the medium trots - put me off a bit. hate going wrong when people watching. First medium trot then didn't happen at all but he did try something in the 2nd one. Rest of it went ok but he didn't feel as secure into the contact as he can be. Just missed out on the 62% mark due to my error. Ended up 10th out of 16 in the qualifier but would have been 7th without my mistake so not too bad as a lot of potential for more. The girl we beat by 2.5% in the prelim beat us by 3% in the Novice and won it so plenty of potential for us to bring in bigger scores. Sam's lovely horse Rocky ridden by SJ Lanning was only 3% ahead of us too and he then got 70% plus in the Nov qualifier. Wish we had done that class instead but thought we liked N22 as 2x FWLR double marked. He only got 6 and 7 though so didn't gain much there.
Then Sunday went to LMEQ for SJ lesson with Lucy Thompson. Started off through grid of 4 canter poles then an upright which he popped through easy peasy, dead straight time after time no probs in a lovely rhythm. Then she put filler in final part and put it up a couple of holes and for some reason we fluffed the canter poles and he nearly stopped at the final jump - naughty pony! He did jump it but ended up hugging his neck! Got told off for getting in front of the movement - mustn't go up his neck until he jumps! We changed grid into 2 poles, upright, pole, spread and he mostly did it nicely but was a bit careless and knocked it down a few times. Followed grid with tight turn left to upright and gradually built up into bigger courses. Awful fail over one jump off a right hand turn, lost the momentum round the corner, thought he was gonna go, chipped in, caught me off balance and acted like I'd socked his teeth out (sure it wasn't that bad!) 2nd last course we did was fab - met everything spot on just concentrating on keeping the canter rhythm and letting him do the jumping. Last one wasn't quite so great but still not bad and jumps up to 1m including arrowhead to finish. Must really concentrate on keeping leg on round corners and riding forwards out of them, esp on R rein. Generally pleased with him though.
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