Fight the tight!

My simple, but versatile course

After a weekend that went by WAY too quickly, began Monday the usual way by cleaning stalls.  Didn't ride Tiki because I had to ride the "other" horse later on, and had to put in bedding so I got finished a little later than I wanted anyway.

Tuesday, I dropped all my jumps down to poles, and rolled the cavs down to the medium setting.  My dressage trainer was there riding one of my BO's horses, and she said Muffin looked really tight in his butt.  To combat that, I worked him over the cavs and poles at the walk, getting everything looser.  At the trot, he was definitely quick and short, and I worked on getting him to soften his jaw and relax.  I did my shallow serpentine exercise, concentrating on changing his bend with my legs more than hands.  He relaxed into that VERY nicely, and after a little canter each way the trot felt a lot better.  Trotted him several times over all the poles and cavs until he quit trying to canter through the bounce.  Before I "jumped", I picked up the left lead canter, came across a diagonal, counter cantered the short side, then did a simple change through the walk on the long side.  Repeated on the other lead; he was VERY good.  The canter felt fantastic; very light.  I began to canter into poles, working on keeping him as soft and slow as I could.  He was super:)  For every lead change I needed, I came down to the walk and picked up the new lead out of the walk, just to reinforce "slow".

Today I walked hills.  Changed it up a little bit though; on the downhills I halted, then backed up.  Marched straight up, then halted/backed every time.  He was a good boy!

Tomorrow no riding; it's grocery store shopping day!  Friday will be a dressage school.  I will probably find some inspiration in my "101 Dressage Exercises" book.