I've been crazy busy writing a proposal for work (and should be working on it now :), so riding time has suffered a little. There are a few things happening though. Megan came to ride Rogo. She is going to keep him in training while I go (as a spectator) to the Blainville Dressage show in Quebec. Several riders from the Maritimes go and I hope that Doug and I will show Savanah and Rogo there in years to come. Cheryl, one of our teachers, is coming with us to take a judging clinic. I think we're going to do some scribing for her which will be a great educational opportunity. It's going to be fun (June 18 to 20).

Back to Rogo and Megan. I'm the only one who has ridden Rogo except for Megan once when he was still on the longe line (I wanted to see someone else on him) and Doug at the walk for a few minutes this winter. Her ride with him went very well. He wasn't the least bit concerned about someone new on his back. She pointed out the same things that Cheryl is working on with us - get my legs working right and get him listening to my legs! Until that happens it's hard to move forward as I'm not getting a consistent bend to the left. Here are a couple of pictures of Megan riding Rogo:

 

I also managed to get some riding time in with my old teacher Joan when she was here to give Doug a lesson. Joan is WONDERFUL and for some reason seems able to calm me when I ride. Here are a couple of pictures of riding with Joan:

Megan commented that Rogo is softer now and taking a better contact. In looking at the pictures of her riding and my riding just now I see that she is asking for and happily getting more contact / a better frame from him. Interesting... Pictures speak a 1,000 words yet again!

Both Joan and Megan commented that Rogo is still lacking balance and Cheryl agrees with this as well. It's unanimous! I honestly think his balance has gotten a bit worse lately. Could it be the growth spurt? Having never worked with a growing horse before I just don't know. He grew more than 2" over the winter (he's 17 hands now) and is still growing. He's hind end high again and his joints haven't closed yet.

He did the funniest thing when I was longing him yesterday. He was being absolutely sweet and I thought great - it's going to be one of those rare, awesome days where everything is going to come together. Suddenly he took off, pulled the longe line out of my hand, ran through the gate to the field (that I'd forgotten to close) and went galloping, bucking and farting down to the end of the field, circled back, continued the galloping and bucking and started whinnying really loudly (he NEVER calls other horses when working and pretty much ignores them - this was a first) and galloped right back to my side where he came to a dead stop. I picked up the longe line, went and closed the gate and we continued our lesson. He was perfectly behaved again. Go figure. Guess he needed to blow off steam but he'd been turned out 24/7 before we went to work. He never fails to surprise me.

Doug had a great lesson with Joan and is getting ready to show Training 1 and 2. Here is a picture of them getting to work at the start of the lesson: