Top of the class

What a lovely day :)

The trek out was marvellous, because it was cloudy so not too hot for me. I think the sun knackered me on Tuesday!

The boys had additional turnout into the jumping paddock to help trim it down. Sadly for Quadi I removed him for a couple of hours today. I can't feel his ribs. His backside and his neck look fine, but his tummy is almost distended. Probably more to do with his lack of abdominal tone. But I'm now trying to decide between muzzling and bringing him in for a few hours each day...he did look ten times better after having worked.

Once he'd been in a wee while we had a nice groom. Needless to say he is still shuddering his shoulders. He will spend the next few days at least without a rug so maybe not having the neck opening pressing on it will make a positive difference?

He seemed very happy to be tacked up and happy to be with me. I set up his poles on the corner. Four in total, the two middle poles having the inside raised.

We started off without the Pessoa as ever. He warmed up well, transitions were really very good. I had to work hard to capture his attention. He does tend to bend to the outside and lean in over the inside shoulder, which means that inside leg never articulates properly. I took inspiration from PK and made sure I did straight lines and moved around the school with him. Moving the circle around the school meant I kept his attention.

Once we had inside bend and back legs coming underneath, I hooked him into the Horse Torture Pulley ;) He curled back as ever but I didn't panic. I pushed him up into trot and he looked fan-bliddy-tastic! Joints all working hard, the Pessoa was doing it's job and getting him reaching under. His head carriage has improved so much, he is still fiddling but I think I need to get him a fixed cheek bit, maybe with a straight mouthpiece. Once again I moved him around the school, and kept changing the tempo of the work.

He was brilliant on both reins. Off came the Pessoa and I worked him 'naked' over the poles. He cheats, he drifts in and out over them. To start with, he was clunking them with his feet but he soon got better. I also have to bear in mind that he doesn't have the correct shape of foot yet. He was much better in trot, and he really powered his hind legs through them. I didn't even have to remind him too much to bend to the inside like we did with the physio.

Due to handler exhaustion we stopped there, but we worked hard and for quite a while.

I stayed longer than expected so the cycle home was hard work with more traffic. But all in all a great day. I will have to get a video of him working this weekend, I find it hard to look at how he's going and concentrate on my knitting ;)