Dressage clinic Kingsclere 26-07-15

Had non-horsey plans for today but they were rained off so when I saw a last minute space in a dressage clinic advertised on Facebook the fact it was in an indoor school was enough to persuade me!

Started with work on the trot - almost bringing him back to walk then back to trot - keeping in rising trot to keep him soft through the back.  Making sure not to have too much inside bend.  Then the shoulder-in making sure to use the outside rein to bring the shoulder off the track.  Travers was good.  HP in trot good both ways.  In the walk when picking him up think slight shoulder fore to stop him anticipating walk piris.

Then onto the canter.  Looking at the videos it all needed a bit more energy.  Did lots of leg yield from the corner across the arena and on the left rein he was really reluctant to get off my right leg so lots of work needed on that as the left HP was decidedly sticky.  Much much better on the right rein - ironic given this was traditionally always our worse rein.  Leg yield great for improving his suppleness and reaction to the leg.

Then moved onto the changes.  They were actually pretty good today. Watching the video I don't think he missed any or even did any right to lefts where he jumped behind.  She thought that probably the jumping together behind was him getting down on his shoulder and not being able to jump through from behind.  Did a bit of work on trying to leg yield into the change.  Need to try and stop him reacting to the change of bend and make him wait for my leg aid.  It's just him trying to be helpful but it's difficult when you're trying to do things like leg yield into the change.  Finally just need to keep him soft and I need to remember to look up.  They are sooooo much better than 6months ago though.

So, on that note I've entered our first Advanced Medium in 2wks time.  Gone for 92 as it has 4 changes in it and I'm hoping he'll get better marks for them than some of the other stuff!  There's a rein back which he's good at and his walk piris have also been getting good marks.  Finally the trot work is split in half by the walk work so I get a chance to regroup!  Find it quite hard at the moment doing all the trot work in one go as sitting trot is bloody hard work for my dodgy back.  Decided 85 was just a Medium with a couple of changes plonked on the end so we might as well do a proper one!  If we get anywhere near 60% I will be over the moon!