Thinking Forward

I'm back to work this week (sad face) so Stitch is getting his workload dropped down to three days a week (maybe a lunge on a fourth day on occasion). He was ridden six days last week, which is too much, but the first few rides were only about 10 minutes each and most of the rides have been at a walk. I wanted the repetition for the first few rides, but now that we are past that I'll drop it down. I'm kind of going with the 3 years old = 3 days a week rule. 

Ride #8 was on Monday. Again, the focus was on forward at the trot, with generally minimal steering. If all went well, I was hoping to take him for his first walk around the yard under saddle. It gets tough to get outside when I have to ride after work at this time of year as it's getting dark so much earlier, so I like to take advantage of the daylight when I can. 

Stitch had had two days off, so I was hoping that this would help him think forward - and he was!

I used my brain and started the trot heading towards the gate. The impulsion was kept through the short end and I didn't have to work as hard to keep him going down the long side.

Unfortunately, the arena footing was a little wonky as they had watered but hadn't harrowed yet (the quad used to pull the harrows had been out for repairs, they were picking it up that afternoon) and there was one spot that he keeps tripping over something. I can't figure out what, other than that the footing changes a bit from deep to shallow maybe? So I tried to avoid trotting through that section, which meant I didn't get full laps. But I was much happier with his forward thinking through this ride. He wasn't perfect, I'd say he got it about 80% of the time. 

Again, we didn't do a ton of trot, but we did go outside for a walk. There was quite a bit of activity happening, and other than trying to look at something and gravitating to the right when I was trying really hard to go left, he was quite good. We didn't fall into any gopher holes so I would call that a win.