As it is the second anniversary of Pacha's arrival, I will add a few more pictures (taken on the august 20 training session) of him to try and measure the progress made.
Sitting trot (first picture ): no particular issue. Speed variations, transitions from and to walk are getting reasonably smooth and without resitance or change in attitude. Cadence and straightness are satisfactory. Stiffness on the right handside requires some light indications from the draw rein.
Posting trot is a good impulsion generator and focuses his attention. Extension reaches some nice level, without losing regularity and with horizontal placer.
Reining back (second picture) : together with canter roundness, another pleasing achievement. It took time of course, but now it is done with correct head carriage, hindquarters engagement and straight, regular strides.
Obviously a lot of work remains to be done: getting rid of the draw reins completely, improving lightness, lateral work (half-pass to the right in particular) etc.. But some good ground work has been achieved, or so I believed then.
Well this was three weeks ago... Since then I did not ride him and we resumed today. I learnt in the stables that he had run away with one rider on the outside arena, and reared with another who tried to collect his canter.. This is a proof, if it were needed, that in equitation nothing is earned for ever, and achievements should never be taken for granted! Actually I suspect that one reason of these two incidents might have been insufficient level of overall work combined perhaps with unadjusted amount of food. His owner had had a few good jumping sessions of which I saw the last one. Excellent jumps and rider's performance, but clearly lack of preliminary relaxation work so Pacha was quite excited all the time - maybe too much in my view. It is regrettable that some show jumpers do not put more emphasis in getting a calm horse before going into jumping. Lack of patience is not a good idea in such case. I am always surprised to see those super hot horses, nose high, rushing onto each fence in competitions. But this is the way it goes..
Anyway, today he was very hot. We were alone with F. in the large indoor arena, and spent time on the walk and sitting trot session. The beginning of the canter session was, say, energetic but no disorder, nor bucking. I kept each canter stint short, and looked for return to some calmness at walk after each period. This was not easy at the beginning, and his restlessness showed with lip flapping and attempt to rush into canter again. Walking on circles, with shoulder-ins, and leg yield improved his behaviour gradually. We ended with a rather long posting trot session, which worked nice in focussing his attention - lip flapping went away. We then returned to medium canter on several rounds on the arena, looking for cadence and regularity, at both hands. It worked fine. We ended with walk on loose reins. Good square halt to finish.
I will resume the regime of lungeing and riding that produced such good effects during Summer.
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