Working Long

 For what I think was the first time ever, I set the Pivo up last week and nailed the setup on the first try.  Which totally makes sense as the arena is now closed and the process of taking it down has begun. When the new arena goes up I'm sure it will take me forever again to find the sweet spots. 

This was a couple of rides after the ride in which we used the Sure Foot pads. I'm still working on trying to encourage Cisco to lengthen his neck in a forward and out way. It's kind of been a little hit and miss since we used the pads as to if he will give it to me, but I keep encouraging him to do so. It's much easier for him to lock the base of his neck and tighten it than he thinks it is to keep it soft and long, so this will be an ongoing way of thinking. 

Here are a selection of carefully selected screenshots. Sorry that they aren't super clear - my video camera is about 12 years old and the lighting in the arena isn't super bright, so it struggles a bit on having a clear image with the lighting and movement. As much as I would like to upgrade to a 4K camera I can't justify the cost at this point, so blurry screenshots it is. 

I like the look of softness in his body here.

Lengthen that neck Cisco!

Any time that Cisco has his ears below his withers that's a good thing.

It looks like we are practicing some cutting moves, but this was a splat spook at the bird that flew up over the gate. You can see the black speck in the top right corner that is the bird.

Cisco has a really fun canter. He has these moments where he really feels like he is jumping through his stride - which feels super fun and makes me laugh. I'm always saddened that it never seems to look like a fancier canter though. I was laughing in the video at this moment.

Lifting up a bit on our stronger right side, but not quite there yet...

and with the softer neck. 

The riding on a longer rein to encourage him to lengthen his neck out is tough for me as I keep wanting to bring my hands back, especially at canter. He tries pretty hard to reach out to the contact, I just have to keep letting him have the extra rein to do so.

We are now stuck outside for the summer. The arena was closed as of yesterday. It still keeps raining - we have another thunderstorm watch pop up as I started writing this. The ground is pretty saturated at this point so nothing is drying quickly. Oh -and the mosquitos have come out in full force. I walked Phantom out after a ride on Wednesday on the grass and she was quickly covered in them. I'm pretty sure that our first few rides in the outdoor arena will not be conducive to Cisco having a long neck, especially if it takes a few more days before things are dry enough to get on him. I'll give it a few rides and try the pads again to see if we can get back to it again.