to clip or not to clip ?

I may think about minimal clips - at least for Fi. She hasn't got terribly wolly so far this winter, but it has been quite mild. On Saturday I worked her for about 40 mins but I have been trying to do more faster work to increase fitness. She definately gets a bit warm on her chest and girth area.

It was a crispy morning and the school surface had a crispy top that quickly worked soft where we used it. But working on the less used areas needed a bit more care.

After working Fi, we rode Dudley and Rosie together. We tried a new approach akin to what happened if we ride out, where Rosie was allowed to follow Dudley. I worked on transitions between halt, walk and trot - and mum followed suit behind. After getting her going, we then tried a variation on this where instead of Rosie making the transition at the same time - wherever she was, instead she made the transition at the same place/marker, and hence after me. This worked less well initially as we built up bigger gaps between us and Rosie would decide that the obvious thing to do was cut straight across in Dudley's direction.

However the overall approach seemed to help and we can build up the distance between us and slowly add in small sections of independent work. This should help to build both Rosie's confidence and her understanding of the arena as somewhere to *move* in !

We didn't ride on Sunday as the weather was a bit dodgy, and both of us were suffering a bit from a cold virus.