Dressage on the Quarter: Another Beautiful Day

Sunny and 51! Can it stay this way until summer...doubtful as I saw snow again in the forecast, but a girl can always dream. I took full advantage of the nice weather this morning and rode Pilgrim, lunged Jazzy, and did hill work with MayMay. Pilgrim had another really nice day and is keeping his frame longer every time I ride. We had a nice long ride this morning, just short of an hour. Lots of walk breaks to keep him loose and from anticipating all the time. We did more canter work to try to help strengthen and balance him. He is still struggling, but much better today. I ended up just doing canter circle, starting at about 15 meters and leg yielding him out to 20 meters. This seemed to work well for him. I'll probably do a lunge day tomorrow with side reins to help strengthen his back.

Faith rode this afternoon, also for an hour. The original plan was to work on her jumping some more, but instead after her warm up we decided to try the new Intro Test C with the canter work. Her canter with Chip is going so nicely and her seat is really beautiful for such a little thing...it's hard not to pop out of the saddle when they are that small, but she keeps her back loose and somehow manages to stick like glue! Gotta give the girl her props, I've rode her pony and he's hard to get to pick up correct leads and has a big movement at the canter! She makes it look easy! The test went really nicely...needs to work on the shape of her circles more but at least they now resemble circles, and are the right size. Her canter in the test was perfect and she had really great transitions. She tends to go into her hunter seat during the canter, but I'm not going to stress about it, I can't see them docking too many points over it. I think they are going to be ready to show before Pilgrim and I! =)