Brrrrrr

It's been a chilly few weeks here - at least its not snowing but it has been getting in the way of riding a bit.

Managed to have my first lesson of 2012 last week - just a flatwork lesson for now but hopefully having a jumping lesson this weekend.

I'm keen to improve the quality of the canter this year which will in turn improve both our flatwork and jumping.

RI rode him for a bit to get the feel of his canter and then we did some canter to walk exercises to get him stepping through with his hocks.  Also did some canter spirals and squares to help with this.

I got on him after RI had sat on him for 10 minutes - the difference is amazing - she can get such a good tune out of him and in turn he goes better for me.

I need to work on really getting my leg wrapped round him in canter - he needs a lot of hand to bring him to walk and therefore lots of leg to keep him collected.  Will be having another lesson next week.

Not had much chance to put these learnings into practiec - had a lovely  hack out on Sunday - just the two of us and he was so good even though he'd never hacked this route before - he gets quite tired hacking and there was lots of head tossing towards the end but we'll keep working on that.

All I've managed to do this week is ride once on Tuesday - it was too cold last night - the arena surface isn't frozen but the top layer has gone a bit crunchy and bumpy - wasn't too keen to work him on it but will hopefully manage to lunge him on Friday night to get some of the fizz out of him before Saturday's outing!