Progress!

Ah, I have such a fab little horse!

Lesson on Tuesday night was amazing - we're working on balance and steadiness in canter especially at the moment, and my instructor had us doing a brilliant polework exercise - simple but effective :)

Four poles laid out in a cross shape, one at E, at right-angles to the track, and one opposite at B, then two along the centre line, leaving a gap in the middle that you could squeeze a small circle into.  The exercise (started in trot) was to ride round the outside of the poles in approximately a 20m circle, then bring the circle smaller into the middle of the poles, and then come into the centre and ride a tiny circle within the four poles.

Well Bets absolutely loved it - dragged me over to the poles and really picked her hooves up over them, all flicky toes and pointed ears!  It really helped when we did it in canter as well, as she started to think about where her feet were going, and steadied up really well.  I was able to sit up and not get dragged forward and it really did feel like we clicked.

She even offered to drop onto the bit a couple of times in canter - we have a pretty consistent outline in walk and trot now, but she normally gets very flat and hollow as she speeds up.  This time we had a few strides of her working nicely and rounding, and when I hopped on for a few minutes yesterday she did the same without the poles too - finally feel like we're starting to crack it!

Lunge session is the plan for today, the one thing she really is terrible at!  We're persevering though :p