Day 69

When I worked with the horses today I put a obstacle in the way. I left the door to the arena open so they could see other horses out in the paddock. When I worked with Darkstar He was a little distracted by it. I put him through his paces then saddled him and went through my usual exercises. Then I got on him and he was really distracted in fact he decided he wanted to just go at a trot. So at first I let him because I don't want to squelch the forward. But when he wanted to stop I didn't let him. Then I had him work on keeping gait whatever it was. Finally, he started settling down especially when I started redirecting his feet every time he broked gait. I had him doing alot of YH and Yf then move off. One rein stops and YF and move off. I started asking for lateral softness with forward and when he was giving me that I started to ask for vertical softness. It took a few times but he started to give me that too. So we worked on that the last 5 mintues or so of our lesson. My plan for Robbie was a little different because the vet thinks he might have an infection. I decided to take it a little easy on him. I did the walk trot canter at liberty with him and then saddled him. Did several sending and circling exercises. He didn't throw up any slime at all. Then I got on him and went through my check list and had him move off. I mainly wanted to work on vertical flexion at the walk. However, I did have him trot some. No cantering. I thought, if he has an infection somewhere in his head I don't want to pull on him much. Anyway he was real good for me and calm. There were a few times he was starting to get focused on the other horses that came into sight, but I just kept his feet moving with YH and YF. So it was a good lesson for him as well.