What We've Been Doing

The weather has been rainy, windy, and just yucky all around.  I know I shouldn't complain because most of the country has it a lot worst, but I still hate winter.  But I am lucky to have a covered arena, and a lovely horse who behaves even when the wind is howling and the rain beating on the metal roof, so we are still making our slow and steady progress.  We haven't had any major developments, so here are the highlights from our recent rides:

-Improving contact: I'm finally getting more comfortable with a more steady feel of the reins.  Unfortunately I have some hand problems so physically it's still hard for me to keep my hands closed on the reins and I have to re-shorten my reins frequently.  In my lessons I do a bit of work with my inside hand very low to establish the contact - which feels a bit awkward and I have to work extra hard to keep the outside rein steady but it seems to help both Cupid and I get the concept.

In our lessons we've been starting out (after warming up) with small circles, at the walk about 5 meters, getting Cupid to cross his hind legs.  This also helps me mentally to make sure he is going forward enough in the walk (which we've been better at recently since I'm making it a priority).

-Transitions: We still have a lot of room for improvement in making our transitions more prompt.  I let Cupid get behind the leg sometimes so that's a big focus.  We're working on trot-halt-trot which we'll need to do for First level - it's not quite there.  And between trot and canter: the up transitions are not prompt (several steps between when I ask and finally get the canter), and sometimes results in Cupid's nose in the air.  But on the bright side he has been picking up his left leads most of the time.  He does still seem to get tired and struggle a bit more after a few transitions or canter laps, so we'll have to work on the stamina.  But our last lesson we focused on the down transitions canter to trot, which had always been too abrupt, and I'm really happy with the progress we made there.  My trainer told me to half halt and think / get the feeling of leg yielding out (without actually making the movement) into the transitions and that seems to help.

We've also been doing transitions within the gaits, working and medium and playing with a bit more shortening and lengthening (working towards collected and extended though obviously not there yet).  We use the shoulder-in a lot in conjunction with the shortening.

Since I didn't have any other recent pictures, I took a few in his stall after a lesson.  Here is Cupid in all his hairy, sweaty, feral looking winter glory.

Fuzzy, sweaty, feral looking