Eole - july 09, 2009

We were alone in the small outdoor arena. Cool and windy weather. Eole seemed to be stiffer than usual. The longitudinal limbering exercises were fine, with good neck extension. But shoulder-ins were less fluid than usual, especially on the left side. Half-pass at trot too. At one or two occasions, a short defence emerged when trying to bring his haunches inside on the circle. I remembered one of Nuno Oliveira's quote that was very relevant today: 'When beginning the work,one must always try to find out how the horse is on this particular day..-..feeling the back, which one day may be stiff because he will have lied down in a false position in the stable, feeling whether one limb is more tired, find out where this tiredness come from and know how to engege it without imposing' ...-...and adapt the aids intensity to the sensations fed back, and design the (session) work plan accordingly'. This is what I did. We spent a good part of the session trying to apply one of NO's video where he performs wonderfully light and fluid movements (circles, haunches out, leg yield with outside bend, change of hand etc..) at trot and canter, without constraint and as if he was playing, rather than working with his horse. This worked very fine. Eole got more supple, and we ended the session with very slow canter on small circles (2m diameter) on the bit, in calmness. At one moment he was so well sitting that I attempted a quarter pirouette - lovely.
We went out for a good rest in the nearby meadow, where he could graze fresh grass.
It was not as spectacular as the last sessions, but I was happy to have been able once again to draw on NO's so valuable learnings, for handling today's problem.