The weather was awful this morning, it was peeing down when I got up, it stopped for about half an hour while I was grooming and tacking up, but then just as I was ready to go out it started raining again. The wind had got up and was really blowing. So, excuse or not, I stayed in the stable and did some in-hand practice.
I thought I'd start with Anky as I need as much practice as I can get. I groomed her, which I think she quite enjoyed and then put the cavesson on. My aim was to do some flexions and stretches at halt,which is what I'm going to do with Remy as preparation for further work in-hand. She was a good girl and we got some nice flexions left and right followed by stretches down.
I then groomed and tacked up Remy asked him for halt and then moved to his shoulder. He's not used to the close work and was very interested in what I was doing there, snuffling in my pocket and trying to back up.
I stood him next to the wall with his bum in the corner and tried again and he stayed at halt (not that he could go backwards). It's funny how he can look round very easily when I want him to face forward, but then when I ask him to give me some bend to the inside , he looks resolutely ahead! Bend to the outside felt easier to me, I asked with the outside rein while pushing gently with my left hand to show him what I wanted and he seemed happy with that. Asking for the inside bend was trickier as he was resisting, so I put my right hand on his neck and gently massaged until he softened and offered the inside bend. I don't know if that makes sense, it seemed to make sense at the time. On one point he flipped his nuchal ligament which I was pleased with. I'm not sure how much we learned from our first time, but he stayed calm and wasn't too distracted so I'm happy with it.
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