...because he was FULL of himself today. It may have been the lovely cooler weather - it was about 65 with a wind and sun - but I think it was because he saw the jumps, realized that I had my Antares on, and wanted to GO. We worked on the serpentine exercise, which made me very aware of how much he likes to land and then cut his corners. A lot of that is my fault as I don't stay out long enough on the approach and then start to turn too early. Based on what I learned from my last lesson with Holly, I need to wait until I get lined up better (lack of depth perception). Once I got the approaches squared away, he jumped much better and the distances started to work out for us. That exercise is a lot of fun - it really forces you to keep them balanced and straight and not allow yourself to cut corners. Sam was in his Dr. Bristol, which didn't seem to make a bit of difference to him when jumping, but he is still respectful of it on the flat, which is all the better. I am going to try and run him Novice at Lumber River with just his Happy Mouth french link and no flash cavesson, as I think it might be hindering his breathing.
Since it was such a lovely day, I decided to ride Oliver, too. Erica was out in the arena already so I thought I would enjoy the company. Oliver is such a good boy - the wind didn't seem to affect him much, although he was a bit livelier today. I still wouldn't call him "hot", though. He was allowing me to put him together a bit more, so I started to sit up and close my leg on him a little more strongly and push him up to the bit to improve the connection. He liked the better balance and gave me some absolutely love flatwork, especially at the trot. The canter departs are coming along - he swapped sides on me, and wanted to pick up his left lead instead of his right, today. That was funny to me, because he has shown a strong preference for his right lead. The fact that he's swapped preferences tells me that it's mostly a balance issue, rather than anything else. The first time we cantered, he bucked along - head up, then tail, then head...it was laughable because he isn't a very good bucker (thank God), but it did get annoying after a while so I pulled his head back up and booted him forward, and he quit acting like a kangaroo. Since he was being so good, I thought we'd trot a few jumps, which he took quite big, and then we cantered a few more. Jumping out of canter is going to be easy for him as he's got such a nice, rhythmic canter stride. It's time to start putting together some simple gymnastics for him so he can start figuring out where to put his feet and how to keep a rhythm.
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