Gymnastics and Dressage

I let Buddy have a couple easy days, after our jump school on Wednesday.  Yesterday one of the other girls at the barn and I set up a small gymnastic; a few trot poles, to a bounce, to a one stride.  We started with just the poles to an x-rail bounce to another x.  After we each did it a few times, we added the last one as a vertical.

Bud didn't have a problem with the gymnast, and I tried to work on holding my position and keeping my eyes up.  The other mare ran out at the one stride so we shortened the distance.  It made it fine for her, but then it was a little short for Bud.  Oh well.  At that point Buddy had gotten tired, and wasn't jumping the first fence, making it hard to work thru the gymnastic.  I smacked him behind my leg with my crop, and while he jumped the first fence, I wasn't able to grab the reins back so we did the line with only one hand.  It was fun!  I did feel my position slip forward though, so more work is needed!

Today I helped the 4H girls run through their dressage tests for fair. One of the girls is doing Training Test 3 and the other two are doing Intro A.  I ended up reading both tests a few times while the girls worked through them.  After I hopped on Bud bareback and did both tests.  The Intro test was our warm up, and it went well. 

We had a little trouble with the Training test.  The one loops confused Buddy at first, but after schooling them a few times I think we got 'em.  In the change of rein at the canter, Bud wanted to do flying change, instead of trotting at x.  He flipped his head when I got after him.  In our focus on our flying changes Buddy has really started to anticipate the change, so I'm going to have to work on schooling the simple changes/trot transitions on the diagonal.   I am happy that we were able to run the Training test bareback and have it be more than halfway decent!