Lessons, Lessons, Lessons!

I haven't had much free time to just sit and write lately! As some of you may know I was continuing to work my other job two mornings a week until they found a replacement for my territory. Well that has finally happened and I am now ONLY at KL instead of all over the place ;) Yay!

The last few weeks we have gotten a few more horses going and a new one has arrived (Star). We have been trialing him as a lesson prospect and will see what happens. He is quite the handsome dude.

Buzz is now regularly being used for lessons and he seems to be a hit. His walk, trot and canter are doing well and he is jumping cross rails more enthusiastically by the day!  Our only complaint is that he is a bit lazy and usually requires a crop, but that we can deal with :-)

Oliver has been used a few times and still gets a bit strong at the canter for the smaller riders. I have been riding him a good bit. We are working on getting him to push out from behind and not lean in to the bit on the forehand. He is slowly beginning to re muscle that upside down neck of his. His main issue is that all the muscling is on the under side of his neck (due to carrying his head way up in the air and leaning forward) rather then the muscling being on the crest (top part) of his neck. With correct work he will re muscle the top and the muscles on the under side will diminish.

Gracie has been coming along. Jess rode her in a trial lesson of sorts this past weekend and she did everything we asked of her. She tends to get a bit quick starting out but not strong. If you talk to her and tell her its ok and just soothe her a bit she relaxes and comes right back. I get the feeling that where ever she came from she always felt like she was in trouble. When you reassure her she relaxes and goes quite nicely! She is jumping cross rails and small verticals. Last week I had her out in the cross country field and she jumped all of the medium sized fences without a second glance.

Star has been with us for about two weeks now. He is doing flat work just fine but needs a bit of pushing to get in to the canter in the ring. Has jumped some cross rails nicely and was out on the track and XC field, always with a great attitude about everything! He seems to have lots of promise.

We have so much going on! Lots and lots of lessons and riding for me the last few weeks. I am loving it!  I had a lesson of my own yesterday on my own horse, Mikey. We are gearing up for this Spring and plan to do the event at Plantation Field in mid May. We'll do Novice again this year to start out since we did not make many outings at all last year (buying a house really effects riding activities! :) ). It was a Dressage lesson and we sorely needed it! Lots of transition work and riding forward to keep him packaged together. I felt like a hot mess half of the lesson but really felt as though things were coming together at the end. Mikey was trying hard but near the middle had a bit of a melt down where he was definitely saying "NO, I don't really feel like doing this right now". We got it back together and kept pushing forward. It's hard starting back after a long winter, for horses and riders both!

One of our very first Dressage tests (at an event years ago). It was pouring rain and super cold. We have come such a long way! The key is to always work hard and improve no matter what discipline or level you are riding :)