Flatwork schooling 27-05-13

Started with the obligatory walk to halts and got a couple of dead square ones straight away!  Shame it didnt carry on like that but maybe one day we'll crack it!  Worth a lot of marks square halts so worth working on and an easy thing to work on during breaks between faster work.

Did the same exercise as yesterday - HP into working walk pirouettes - the wind was up today and he finds this hard so we had some serious strops - was on the edge of rearing or being bucked off a few times.  It is good for him though - softens him in front and gets his back end working.

Some trot work next - trot-walk-trots, trot-walk-halt-trots.  Making my shoulders ache a bit so not as soft in the contact as he was before this break.  Had my slight suspicions on the right rein again that he was nodding slightly - will have to get it on video again as not sure how much of it is my paranoia and how much is really there.  Nothing there on a loose rein which is good.  Trot to halts down the centre line and moving off softly - nice to have cracked that one.  Did a couple of leg yields changing the bend into them - more to work on there.

Then did a really good chunk of canter work.  Need to remember to do decent amount of canter work now to increase his fitness.  Did some rein back to canter which he did nicely on both reins.  Did some canter-trot-canter across the diagonal which we still need to improve to keep him rounder.  Did a bit of counter canter round the short side and then simple change.  Another thing we could really work on.  Llewi's counter canter is far superior to Monty's and he hasn't been schooled in 18mths.  Working on his counter canter is likely to benefit his normal canter a lot so should make more of an effort to work on this.  Did some on and back in the canter, coming back into a 10m circle then transition into walk as hit the track, few strides walk then back to canter.  Did a couple of simple changes on half 10m circles to finish.  Right to left we struggled a bit on the half 10m circle R but got the canter to walk and then a nice upwards transition.  Left to right he did a perfect canter to walk but head up in the walk to canter.

Finished with a trot stretch on both reins.