My legs are good in canter

....well, on the left rein - but at long last!!

The right rein is still a work in progress, but I'm just so delighted that I finally seem to have cracked that brick wall. RI said the canter has improved so much and she could see that I'd been working on it. She also thought that cantering on the long lines fairly regularly had helped a lot too. So yippee! I think I finally have a bit more feel in canter and now it's not just getting into it (which used to be so stressful for me). It's also achieving balance and impulsion within the canter and wait for it ....altering the pace in canter. As I said, this is mostly on the left rein at the moment, but we worked out today what was going wrong on the right so I have something to work on.

Sammie was a star as usual and really worked his socks off. We also worked on the walk a bit (not Sammie's best pace) and that really started to come together a bit better as well.

Then we worked on an imaginary square and at the corner I had to half halt, weight my inside seatbone, keep the reins low and do a very subtle sort of 'bobbing' movement with my hands side to side. The idea is to get Sammie to turn on his haunches, so his back feet make tiny steps but in the same place and his forehand comes round - turn on the haunches basically. Oh and you also have to bring your outside leg really forward to the girth - taking it back makes the bottom swing round rather than the forehand. We got a few tentative steps of it and Sammie was really trying to work it out.

We also worked on getting the bend better on the right rein (Sammie's worst rein and not helped by me) It means he has to stretch the muscles round the offside which he finds a bit more difficult but RI said we had a real improvement - something else to work on. I kept saying to RI how hard Sammie is trying and how giving he'd become. She agreed but reminded me that I'd also put in the work and if I hadn't or didn't, I wouldn't be getting this from him. I thought that was a really nice compliment and I guess she's right. But Sammie is giving it back in spade loads. The only reason he can't do something is because I haven't got the right idea in my head and once I get it right, he gives it up with great generosity of spirit.

He also tried a few voluntary Spanish Stamps at the end. I think he was trying to encourage RI to share one of her biscuits with him, which she did of course. He knows now that the white cooler bag contains all sorts of goodies!

Even K said what a lovely canter Sammie had when we were in the school the other day - I honestly never thought I would see that day!

Yesterday we went out with K and her young man (the four/five year old). Apparently at her old yard (a very miserable place by the sound of it) nobody would go out with her on him because he's so young. He was fantastic and K needs more experiences like that because she came off him earlier this year in quite a nasty fall, not his fault really, another horse bolted and he bucked and spun round.

Sammie was quite happy going out with his new pal.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some long lining with the young one and show K the ropes. I'm going to do a test run with Sammie first, get him going and let her get a feel of it and then we'll try with her boy. She's offered to muck out for me in return so I can't complain at that!