The Riding/Training - Elvis and Gus Do Some Hill Work

Elvis nd Gus Do Some Hill Work

I rode Elvis and my husband rode Gus.  We did trotting hill work.  We rode in the English cross-country tack.  I had Elvis in a rubber pelham.  He went very nicely in it.  There was a little diving and curling up behind the bit, but I took the trainer's advice and asked him not to do those things when they happened.  And he was doing it less and less frequently. 

After the hill work we went to the arena.  My husband and Gus did canter laps and worked on rein back.  Elvis was not used to working in the arena with another horse cantering, so we worked on not paying attention to the other horse and paying attention to me.   We did a lot on the center line: walking straight, bending left and right, leg yields left and right, turns on the forhand, turns on the haunches.  Then we did an exercise I had not tried with him for over a year and back then he couldn't do it.  We did bending on the circle - counter bending on another circle - bending on that circle - and so on.  He got it and it made him very soft and round.  He found a "happy place" as one clinician once put it.  So we stopped there, with both a wet blanket and a tired brain for Elvis.  But also with a sense of success.

I am ashamed to admit that I was still sore from my lessons on Wednesday...

 

 

PJ has a big chip out of her left front hoof.  She doesn't seem to be lame. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if we need to do anything about this.  The farrier is coming on Friday.