Busy, busy, busy, that about sums up my life. I am always on-the-go for one reason or another. This weekend's successes, however, include cleaning and refilling all 3 water troughs, tightening the Electrobraid (which has been on my to-do list for about a year) and riding horses. The TWH was the subject of my torment for the first ride, we tentatively have a show on Sunday and I need him to be able to canter halfway decently in order to be successful. I had hoped to have more canter rides under his belt by this time in the month but alas the days flew by without my being able to do what I should have.
The TWH is getting much better in his trotting, he is almost back to normal. For me anyway, anyone else requires significant more effort. I am pretty happy with where he is trot wise and think it will be enough for the show I will be going to. His canter, however, still requires work. We cantered for the first time a week or so ago and while he was excellent about picking up the canter and correct lead immediately, the quality of the canter left a lot to be desired. It was unbalanced, fast and super pacey with almost a good 2 beat instead of a nice 3 beat gait. His down transition has also suffered greatly with him pacing for almost a quarter circle before picking up the trot.
His other direction wasn't much better with the transition or balance but at least going to the left he finally gave me a good three beat canter. I will give him credit, he was trying and he did remember what to do. He didn't wait for me to get after him, he picked up his canter right away and gave a down transition right away. He even kept the ability to steer even though he kept dropping his inside shoulder and leaning on a circle. All things considered I am pretty happy with his progress. When RB4 rode him yesterday she was getting frustrated with him, I had to remind her that he has only cantered a few times over the past 3 months and she needed to be patient as he wasn't going to be perfect. It is really cool to have someone expect your horse to do what they should because they have been trained to do so but as a result she kept forgetting that the TWH needs a little more leeway right now. He isn't going to be collected, he isn't going to be completely balanced, he is going to drop his shoulder and he will pace when you come out of the canter. I have work to do!
In other news I rode the horse in training and though he tried to run me into the wall a few times, I successfully rode and didn't get hurt. Riding in spurs was not sufficient and I had to also ride with a whip to get him to move off of my legs and to not randomly stop but in the end we had made progress and I was even able to get him to pick up his almost nonexistent left lead 3 separate times. He has no balance on his left lead and is horribly fast with little steering but at least I finally got him to pick up it up. I am showing him to people on Wednesday so hopefully the love him and will buy him. Sadly I will be glad to see him go, I don't mesh with him and I just can't trust him.
Good boy TWH! He knows what you want and is trying, but he's so out of shape it's hard. He will get there as he gets back in shape. :)
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