Today was the last chance for a schooling ride before the show on Sunday. I wanted to run through the test a couple of times, but I also wanted to ride outside so we couldn't depend on the arena walls. I spent a while marking out a 20x40m ring inside the sand ring before I went to get Rory. He hung over the fence and watched me for a while before going up to the shelter with his buddies for a snooze.
We went into the arena for the longe session. Rory was full of beans and went out to trot right away without waiting to be asked and stepped into a canter. He was very well balanced in the canter and didn't pull on me to make the circle bigger. I was surprised and let him go round about three times before bringing him back to trot. I had to reel him in to a smaller circle to get him back to walk. When I asked him to trot he bounced and shook his head and pulled away. It took a couple of tries before he'd trot properly. He bounced harder on the other rein and I checked the saddle to see if anything was wrong before sending him out again. He settled and did a couple of transitions between walk and trot, and within the trot before I took him out to ride.
I started on the left rein today and asked him to reach down for the bit and lift his back as he'd done last time. Rory got it right easily, then got it wrong for a bit as he tried to understand what I wanted. I gave him an enthusiastic "Good boy!" when he was right and he stopped to get his bit of carrot without prompting. We worked a little bit at trot with the same sort of exploration of possible responses, and had a little canter. Rory was definitely getting the idea.
We did a little trot on the right rein and then ran through the test three times. My ring "fence" was only poles marking the corners, B, E and C with cones to mark the corner letters which meant I had to put some concentration into keeping Rory inside the ring. Which in turn meant less attention to Rory's attempts to reach for the bit and lift his back. He was really trying to carry himself so his trot and topline were rather inconsistent. He did well with some wobbles, and the odd ignoring of turn aids. The turning will be easier when we have a real ring fence for Rory to look at. After running through the test twice we did a couple of figures and an interrupted third run through, then finished with some practice of the walk figure (loop HXK).
I am really pleased with how quickly Rory is picking up the idea of lifting his back and stretching into the contact, and how willing he is to offer it but it's not a great fit with the timing of his first show. Rory really needs a bit of time to explore the contact and self carriage ideas with my full attention to rewarding his correct tries, without me worrying about exactly where his feet are going. On Sunday I will have to remember to keep that in mind and allow his feet to wander a little.
It was hot today and Rory sweated up more than he has before. After I untacked him we went out to the washrack and I hosed him off. He had to stand there for a few minutes while I rescued the trouble kitten from the spare tire under the farm truck. I fed him outside and he was almost dry by the time I took him into the barn. His belly was still too wet to put fly repellent on, so I took him out to graze while he finished drying.
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