A sunny day and two brilliant schooling sessions

I rode my horses in the sunshine today, it was lovely. I'd definitely be fooled into thinking spring was on its way, and I seem to have been given a reprieve from the lurgy, so all good!

I think Remy is slowly becoming the horse that I dreamed he'd be when we started our training. We've reached a place where I can feel improvement day by day.
He's staying soft in the hand and through his neck, and if he tenses it just takes a lift of the rein to get a release and relaxation again. I can feel his carriage improving and everything else along with it.

He did so much good stuff today, I don't know where to start, but I worked him around the school as usual, moving shoulders and quarters, lots of transitions with halt/walk/reinback  and keeping him relaxed with good bend on small circles. His shoulder-in was well balanced, and he's responding much easier when I ask for the travers. His reinbacks were smooth and he stayed rounder and softer infront.
Best of all, he's showing better balance and rhythm in his trotwork, and today he gave me some lovely steps, stretching down and out, but maintaining a slow, balanced rhythm and keeping his shoulders up.
He was so relaxed that I tried one or two canter transitions at the end of the session.
I want to try and train the canter from walk, so my first attempt was by riding a small loop back to the track in counter shoulder-in, asking for the transition as I joined the long side. This didn't work at all - we have done it with some success once before, but I tried twice and it wasn't happening today, so I tried once from reinback and asked for the transition as he went forwards to walk ,and, what a star, he gave me the transition. Rough and ready, but with lots of energy so we have a place to start.

I then had a session with Bonbon in the school. With all the bad weather we've had, it's been a few weeks since I took her in the school, but she was a good girl on the lunge and we did some walk and trot work before I had a sit-on.
We worked on stop, go and turning, with lots of walk/halt transitions and circles on both reins. I asked for a couple of steps of reinback and she responded really well and stayed soft in my hand. Can't say how pleased I am with her.

I wore my Hit Air vest for the first time and I'm pleased with that too. It's very light and not in the least bit restrictive, in fact I forgot I was wearing it and had to be reminded to release myself from the saddle before I got off!!