Doin da dressage

Duke and I had a nice ride yesterday. We worked on bending, transions, poles and general self carriage. In general Duke tries so hard to figure out what the crazy lady wants and how to do it. It was also our first time trying out spurs. I used Andrew's little nubby spurs and they seemed to work well.

 

It was also my second ride in my new boot, so needless to say I have band aids on my ankles.

Our bending is slowly improving, not quite through the whole body ( or half) yet, but incorporating self carriage and attempts to frame all at the same time is hard. We also tried some leg yielding too. It went as well as you would expect for our second try. He bends, and crosses over well in front but his butt trails out behind and to the inside, as to be expected. I am sure as we both get physically stronger it will become much easier. Our transitions are good, some are more prompt then others, but again never to late and with more muscle building they will only be cleaner and neater.

Our pole work was okay. Nothing special but I did not ask for much, they were more to help break up any monotony. We did canter our first pole though! I know he has jumped with the kids before but I would like to try to teach him how to jump properly rather then throw himself over the rails. I have been told many times he is better over the bigger (2'6") fences. Not gonna go there...

In other news welcome home Flower!

 

 

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