Columbus's Training Diary

Our today's session was very successful and I must say I am impressed with his improvement. I wouldn't say he is the cleverest of horses but he does try to understand and you can almost hear his brain cells working!

Getting ready: hmm, I think I spotted an unattended polo...



After the ride: all tired :)



I rode with some classical music in my ears today and it worked wonders. I seem to focus more when riding with music. It's almost as if the creative/feeling part of my brain gets switched off with double power.
We worked a lot on bending today and I asked him to flex his neck a lot both ways without drifting from the straight lines. He definitely improved on this since last time and didn't try to turn even once. His stiffer right side still need a lot more work than the left side.

Transitions were generally better too with more quality to downwards ones than at last session. I challenged him today with plenty of changes of rein across diagonals and half circles in trot and worked on him taking the outside contact.

He strongly evades me on the right rein which unfortunately is my weaker side and I don't progress there as much as I would wish. He still felt easier today than a fortnight ago so some messages must be getting through!

And some more pictures from today, all thanks to Helen who arrived just a minute before I was due to finish and snapped us coming back from the field :)








And this is what Columbus always does after I spend some time sponging him down:

Columbus felt a little stronger today than a fortnight ago and his winter coat is almost completely gone.
He was argumentative to start with but settled very quickly. I worked a lot on stretching his very stiff left side (unusually!). His left rein work is reasonably soft in comparison to the right rein work.
He coped well with 45 minutes workload and I will be increasing the amount of trot and canter we do as we go along.
For now, it is very much down to basics with major focus on suppleness and acceptance of the outside rein. There is a lot of horse to ride when you are on him and balancing his body around the corners and circles is a mega challenge!