Lesson WIth Cheryl

Rogo and I had a lesson with Cheryl this morning. Thankfully the rain stopped and the heat didn't return with a vengeance until after our lesson was over. That didn't stop Rogo from being lazy though. He was REALLY sluggish - I worked for every step :) I tried to remember not to nag and to release my legs as soon as I got a response, but it was back to draggy almost instantly. Cheryl got me to tap lightly with the whip behind my leg in time with his rhythm when I was in the corners. This helped some, but he didn't really wake up and engage in the lesson until it was almost over. He's always been slow to warm up, even in winter, and it's not unusual for him to suddenly become quite forward after 40 minutes or so of pushing him. 

Today we worked on quarter line and center line loops from the rail and this seemed to get him going, finally. Suddenly he gave me a huge working trot, great bending, forward, forward, forward without pushing. Yeah! At least it was there for a few minutes.

Our work today was walking and trotting on the rail in both directions with small circles in the corner, adding in one canter transition out of these small circles each way at the end of that exercise, loops, a bit of leg yield (trying to get him to understand the concept but it's a struggle) and always lots of free walk. The general theme is bending and balance and will be for some time to come.

He wanted to poke his head out a lot today too, but that got better with the corner circling and loops.All in all, nothing spectacular but a solid lesson and I'm very happy with him.
Now the trailer is sitting in a mud hole, thanks to all the rain, so loading practice is on hold until I can get it moved or the mud dries up. Damn.