Greg is still working through issues on Oliver. Sometimes, I wish I hadn't opened that can of worms and just let Ollie be, because I wonder when (if?) we're going to see the end of this. Ollie had regressed a little bit in his PT, and was moving a tad stiffly behind like he was before. Greg came out and worked on him and was able to go REALLY deep and unlock stuff he wasn't able to do before, which is good news, but it also tells me just how much more there is to unlock. Greg said something to the effect of "he must have been in a heck of a wreck" when he was younger. Oi vey.
Anyway, I let Oliver be for a few days afterwards, anticipating a lot of soreness and stiffness ( I remember how I felt my first time after Greg working on me!) and when I took him out, he lost his left lead. I was worried, but then I rode him again and it was back, but not was pretty as before (the transition, that is). I guess we're still working through thing. Due to all of this, I didn't get my entry fee in to Denny's in time, so I have to sit this one out - right now, as a matter of fact, because the show is in progress as I'm typing. OH well. I have my entry in for MacNair's for next weekend, so it isn't so bad. I'm hoping that we can school xc at the end of the month at the Horse Park, which will mean that I need to put in my Friends of the Park fee for that. We're going Maiden for MacNair's, and then in April I will most likely go BN. I think we might be able to shoot for Lumber River, if I don't chicken out due to the incredible heat we always get around that timeframe.
We have a dressage arena at our new place - wheee!!! I'm so excited. I'm such a geek to get excited about a blooming dressage arena, but it helps so much because I always get marked down for missing the geometry at a show. Plus, it helps me with my canter transitions. A real dressage arena is always bigger than I expect it to be. There's more room in there for canter work than I had origninally thought. I had a jumping lesson with Christan, with Joe watching for the first time, and it went really really well. I was so happy. I'm finally figuring out how to keep my leg on Oliver, even with a shorter stirrup, and maintain that bouncy canter to the fence. Christan said I do a nice job with rebalancing him about 8 strides out, but then I lose it and end up missing out spot because of it. Apparently, I also like the long spot, which baffled me as I thought I liked to go deep better. I think it's a result of trying desperately NOT to pull on his face to hold for the spot, so I just sort of let things go. Christan told me to really sit and "maintain the canter with my seat and leg" before the jump, not my hands, and what do you know - it worked like a charm. Once I could concentrate on keeping the canter with a different part of my body, other than my hands, it worked very well. Oliver kept the rhythm the same to the jump, no more rushing, and we were able to hold for the deeper spot. Then, we cantered over a vertical, and a very bendy line to an oxer. I tended to let Ollie run out of steam before the oxer, so we ended up with sort of a flat jump, so I had to really leg, leg, leg it to the base of the oxer. The jumps were more BN size than we've jumped before, and Oliver was sort of bored with the whole thing. That's nice to know that the size of the jump really doesn't impress him. It also tells me that he's able to sit down a bit better in front of the jump, so we're definitely making progress.
Took him for a trail ride yesterday, just around the property (there is really no place for a real trail ride), and he was quite good. A bit lookier than usual, but he behaved himself very well and even picked up his leads out there, trotting around on the bit. The new barn is gorgeous, but I miss the trails of Weymouth Woods.
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