one step forward, one airs above the ground, one lame horse

:sigh:

The weekend before last I rode Fi on Saturday but felt she was not quite right. So on the Sunday, as the weather was not so great, I just did some ground work.... and then made the "mistake" of letting her loose to do some loose schooling.

She... ahem... let off some steam...

When we then turned them out into the bigger paddock, she let off some more...

and was then lame for the next week.

She was still not right by this weekend, so I long reined on Saturday and just did some (on line) groundwork on Sunday. She seems to be getting less sore

In the meantime I long reined Rosie on Saturday, and she was a star. I did an exercise with her to work on steering and her "compliance" to what you ask for.

The weekend before we loose jumped her (again she was a good girl). When I went to warm her up on a single line on Saturday, she felt she ought to canter down the side of the school we had the jumps on. It seems she is very literal at the moment in what you teach her and needs some help when you change that (now we don't want that, we want this....).

Anyway, having sorted out that she didn't need to canter down the long side any more, I got her doing an exercise where you come off the long side at, say, K and head to X. At X you make a 10m circle to the outside, and on returning to X you then head back to the same long side i.e. to H. It took one or two times on each rein for her to "get it", but then she was great. Interesting when we tried the same exercise under saddle the next day, she was much more hesitant and less "firm" in her steering ? She is coming on nicely though :)