New videos!

Actually, I'll start off by saying I ordered a new saddle - a Crest Ridge. It will have the bars of the Sentry but the seat/horn of the Wade model. I hope I like it! I know the Sentry bars fit Mac and it turns out the extra-wide should fit him better than the wide. Now I wait for six weeks or so! Can't wait to report back with hopefully good news that we both like it!

Now to videos. I got Colin to video my ride on Sunday and I was so pleased. Usually when I get a video of my riding, I don't like it or it doesn't look like how it feels. Or when I know the camera is rolling I get tense and then don't have a good ride. But on Sunday I didn't have tension, had a great ride, and only had to edit out one small part that I didn't like.

Here is the first of four clips. This is our warmup where we did some baby lateral work like shoulder in and leg yield and then canter.



The second clip shows us doing trot work. It is hard to get a feel for what we were doing because the straightaways were sort of at the wrong angle, but we were shortening the stride on the short side of the arena and lengthening (which compared to a normal horse looks just like a regular trot!) on the long side.



In the third clip we are working on walk-canter-walk transitions on a figure eight. You can hear me telling him what a good boy he is after one of the transitions.



The last clip is doing a few small canter circles. This is new work for us and a bit more challenging because he has to keep himself together and not fall apart.



I'm trying to ride him in a more "up" frame (which is a word I hate, but you know what it means) and balance it out with stretching. These videos are finally a place where I can look back to see really great progress with Mac. He's doing so well in his work and even if he might get frustrated, he tries and he never says no. I love that horse!