Help, Mr. Tappy!

I've been having good rides on Cisco lately.

Not good rides, as in he's magically turned into a fancy prancing dressage pony, but good, in that we're having moments.  I mean, we're also having lots of trot really fast towards the gate moments, and the lovely left lead tranter moments too. But in between those icky moments we're getting those moments when he stretches down at a trot, or he does a soft walk/trot transition, or we get a right bend.

Cisco's got a bit of a mohawk on the top of his head - a result of having to use the clippers blindly to trim his bridlepath since he's not real keen about them up by his ears. He was much better last time though.

For Sunday's ride, I was originally thinking of working on cantering over a pole since I need to try to jump him again this week. But since the arena was cleared of jumps I decided that this was the day to do a bit of work on our leg yields.

I totally admit that I've kind of neglected them so far with Cisco. I've had moments that I've asked for them, and he's given me a decent attempt, but it is so not ingrained yet and it needs to be.

I carried Mr. Tappy instead of Mr. Spanky to help with the leg yields and hopefully also the tranter. It's been a while since Mr. Tappy has come out, and it took Cisco a few minutes to realize that the presence of Mr. Tappy did not mean that we were immediately cantering and that he was fully capable of not bulging away from whatever side it was being held on.

He had a good, dirt grinding roll after his shower. 

The leg yield was quite good at a trot off the right leg, not that surprising since I've had to do more work off this leg trying to not let him drop his shoulder to the right in upwards transitions. The first leg yield off the left was non-existant, but after a reminder at the walk and with the assistance of Mr. Tappy something started happening. That's also my bad side, so that's not going to help.

He was much better about picking up his left lead tranter, and Mr. Tappy helped to turn it into a canter much faster than Mr. Spanky was able to do. I'll definitely be carrying the long Mr. Tappy for the next little while.

I also washed Cisco's tail. It's getting pretty white these days (when it's clean).

Sunday's ride also had what was probably the most relaxed canter we've had so far. Cisco is finally settling into his rhythm. Our steering to the left has a long ways to go still, but at least he isn't feeling so rushed.

I'm aware that all of our problems are related to lack of consistency. If he was ridden 5 days a week we'd be far more ahead in this game - I wouldn't have a fresh horse for half of the rides that had to be worked down. But that's not going to happen these days, and slow progress will be the result. So be it. I'm enjoying the journey.