Pacha - march 4, 2011

Ground work in the small outdoor arena. Chill weather. After 10 minutes of freedom which Pacha loves to employ at rolling himself in dust and  mud with delight (why is it that greys particularly relish so much in making themselves dirty?!), we started lunge work on a simple halter. We began to make it a play between us:
-instead of letting him move on a regular circle, I walk/run along his side on say 5 strides on a straight line, then turn on a smaller circle before repeating this sequence across the whole length of the arena. The first time I ran alongside him, he was startled and afraid. I stopped and he came to me as if for asking for comfort and explanations! I did it again, walking first, then running at very slow speed. He understood and in a few minutes he got used to see me running with him. He enjoyed this a lot, and stretched his back long and low, varying speed  as well as transitioning across the three gaits, on request. His trot in particular is looking quite nice in this exercise, relaxed and extended.
We carried doing this, with some rests periods (for me I mean..) on fixed circles.
Then, 5' of walking together, he being completely free, and following me head at my shoulder, stopping when I stopped. No words - very pleasant. Frequent patting and scratching at the withers from me when at halt, which he clearly enjoys.
Then I wanted to do some work in hand, with the snaffle I had brought, and a dressage crop.Things got more difficult. He is OK when moving straight on the large side, stops and reins back satisfactorily. But a lot a work remains to be done when it comes to push his quarters outside on small circles. He gets nervous and confused, messes his movements of the hind legs up, and looses any lightness up to the point of locking himself up so to speak. So I reduced my objective to walking him on large circles, and pushing him gently with my fist  on his flank (not the crop on his hind) until seeing some beginning of cross over of the hind legs; when successful , halt and 'scratching reward'.
We are yet far of lateral work in hand, in lightness. This is just another new challenge to pick up!