Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Day 28

Had a good workout with Ceasar last night. I have been working alot on the groundwork getting things more refined for him, so we have been doing sidepasses and leg yields and lots of backups with energy and disengagements with softness. Then I saddle him and do the same thing again and if he gets antsy with it I just sidepass him around the arena. Oh, he humps up a bit but I keep it up until he settles down, then we walk off. I disengage with as much softness as possible and then gradually work into sending him off. If he gets too fast, I softy disengage and start again until he will move off at a walk. He is getting alot better.
I got on him and started out flexing him then moved off at a walk on a loose rein. I wanted to work on his softness again, especially at a canter, but I needed to warmup to that. So first we got him real soft at a walk, then moved up to a trot and got him real soft. Then I switched gears and worked on disengaging with softness. Then started to work on counter turns/moving his shoulders over. I also wanted to work on his back up. Then we went back to forward with softness at a walk then trot then up to a canter trying to maintain that softness. It, of course broke down at the canter because he doesn't know how to carry himself balanced. But once we got up into a canter I continued the rein effect until he gave me softness. He finally did if for one stride. I brought him to a walk and stop and let him rest as a reward. Then we tried again. This time it didn't take near as long and after a few more tries he was willingly seeking that softness. So when I got it for a four or five strides we had a good long rest and tried in the other lead. Going in the right lead seemed to be a bit easier for him  get it. So we didn't have to work as long at it.
We ended up quitting on his note. After a cool down of walking and working on counterturns we were done.

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