CAN Dressage Afterall

Another dry day, and a day in the 70s! I was super super tempted to jump again but in the end, it had to be a dressage day. Our flat work/dressage helps our jumping anyways. And I wanted to see if we could WTC in control.

He got sweaty and lathered.
Going to get shaved this weekend!

Twister was a lot more relaxed then on Tuesday. Tacked him up and started warming up. I don't know why he warms up so stiff anymore. He always works out of it but he feels so choppy for the first few minutes. He's on joint supports and cocosoya and a multi vitamin. Not sure what else I can do, or if being 11 just makes him feel old..... it shouldn't but then again some days I get out of bed and I feel old and I'm not old at all. ANYWHO. So after I felt him moving out more freely I started asking him to ride up into my hands. He knows the drill now. He starts to lift his back and step under himself, he comes off his forehand and gets into a nice frame. He can carry himself that way for longer periods of time each time I ask and he realizes he can't get away with only 30 seconds of it and as his muscles get used to it.

Walk and trot, great. Last year I worked every day on walking in a frame and had the worst time. Now we have a great, forward walk, lots of impulsion without breaking gate while maintaining his frame. I call that progression!

The biggest issue we have right now is downward transitions. He's not as bad from the walk to the halt (although we are still working on halting square in behind), as soon as I ask him to go from a trot to a walk he hollows his back, sticks his nose out and pulls into the walk. Bad bad bad bad. I only ever transition now on a circle, thinking if he's bendy and round he'll have a better chance staying that way in a circle. But to no avail. I am very open to suggestions btw :)

The other thing we need to work on is cantering. We got our leads but he was very speedy, on the forehand and half the time his back was hollowed. Not good. But we haven't done much dressage work at the canter because the we've only done intro level tests at shows. I was hoping if he got a good canter yesterday I could try training level test 1, but I don't think we're quite ready for that. I think we'd probably jump the ring...... When he gets all strung out like that I can't keep him in a 20m circle to save my life. Going to schedule a lesson for after Easter some time.

The fact that I can WTC at all in a plain o-ring copper bit is amazing. He used to get ridden in this scary-looking Spanish bit and now I can have a nice, controlled, non-scary pony in a snaffle. And in a hackamore. That makes me happy!