with Nigel the wonder pony! ( Lipizzan...whatever)

He was just so fun today. The rate at which he learns is unreal. ...I do have to prepare him properly.... help him get into that sweet spot learning frame of mind. When he gets it...watch out! He's almost like a difference species. (maybe he's really an alien)

We did lots of fun things taking advantage of the still dry ground. (yay for that) Traveling circling game was grrrrrrrrrrreat! He seemed to really enjoy it. Hardly touched the end of the line even while cantering and yet he was out there doing his thing. Up and down the big hill even. Then we ended up at the log and he hopped right over! What a good boy! Backed up and down the hills, into the arena...just romped around.

I had an idea to help him want to hop over the barrels. He is all for going through them. lol. Just pushed them out of the way, march through, turn face and wait. Today I put the cavaletti in front of it. Much harder for him to push it out the way with his knees.

I felt better about asking him now that we have our maintain gait, maintain direction, look where you're going over an obstacle so much more solidly. Sure enough he did it. Not super pretty on the first try because he gave them a shove with his nose first and had them in a bit of disarray when he jumped them. But the second time was great. Both times were with me on his right side but that's ok I think. We'll just add the other side later.

Had a great ride too. Man I love to ride him. He just seems so sure footed and solid. We got some blowing out right away too! Totally excellent.

He hardly kicked up at all going into the canter. I decided to experiment with really leaning back and even going more in my body. He extended the canter pretty well. It was funny though because it seemed like he was almost surprised that he was doing it.

Had some beautiful sideways and good bounce the rein to back up. I feel like I want to do the backing up with my legs a few more times. He does it. But now I want to isolate it to make sure he can differentiate all the different ways to ask. We've done so many of them...

Ah Nigel. He got lots of smooches today.