Warm but blustery weather....

The horses have had a couple of days off so back to work today.
I took Remy in the school, it was blustery and he was spooky. I put him on the lunge and he calmed a little so we had a short in-hand session working on rein-back, halt/walk transitions, giravolta and circles, all the time trying to keep him focussed and attentive. He was very good so I sat on and we did the same exercises ridden. He kept his focus, waited patiently at halt, listening and waiting for me to ask. The rein-backs were better as was the following walk on as he relaxed and flexed a little at the poll. After a couple of repetitions I took him onto a circle and we did some figure of eights with a nice change of bend. To finish we returned to the rein-back/walk on exercise and added the turn on the forehand, repeat in the new direction. There were a lot of distractions today and I was really pleased with his behaviour. I rode him back down the lane and had a little (our first!!) trot towards home.
I then rode Anky up to the school and I felt like we'd taken a few steps backwards as by now the wind had really got up and she was quite distracted.
She started off by not wanting to release to the flexions at halt, but after a few minutes she started to relax and stretch down and I moved her around on small circles trying to keep the softness and bend. We had some nice steps,but she was still worried about other things and it was far from consistent.
I then tried the reinback-exercise against the fence which seemed to get her attention and I was really pleasantly surprised at how softly and fluidly she moved into the rein-back from a light request. The whole exercise was improved, the walk forward after the rein-back and the turn on forehand to change the direction. Still lots to work on, but definitely going in the right direction. We finished with figure of eights on a long rein, keeping a nice softness through the change of bend. Great.