July 23, 2011 - Minor distractions

At the beginning of the ride Rory had a little extra energy and tried to tell me where we were going and how fast.  I mostly ignored him and just concentrated on getting him to walk where I wanted to go.  After a halt to remind him to listen he was fine.  We trotted a bit then stopped to answer a question from the barn owner.  Afterwards we went back to trot and Rory dropped back to the walk when he got to where Totyo was standing on the other side of the fence.  I got him back into trot and Totyo jogged along just behind us to the corner.  Rory kept an eye on Totyo but trotted on round the end of the ring without slowing down.  On the left rein he tended to fall to the as we came down the long side towards the barn.  The other long side was the one against Totyo's fence and he didn't drift away from it.

We managed to canter on both leads today.  Rory was a little sticky to first get into the canter, but once he'd made the first transition the next ones were easier.  On the first left lead canter he almost broke to trot in the first corner, but I put my leg on and pushed him on and he kept the canter.  The second time he really fell to the inside as he stepped into the left canter so I turned it into a big circle before continuing down the long side (he drifted in again).  The right lead canter was very short at the end of our time, but he got it.

We did some more trot and changed reins, and at the end I discovered he responded well to the voice command "trot up!" that I use when I longe.  This will help me teach him to trot more forward off my leg and reminds me to use more vocal commands as he's learning.  In thinking about the ride later I also thought that I should avoid interuptions from other people.  Since I'm only riding for fifteen minutes, stopping for two or three minutes to talk to someone really cuts into Rory's training time.