Rain, rain, go away!

It seems like we get a day or two of nice weather, then it pours for 3-4 days then repeats.  It poured on and off all weekend, Monday and Tuesday.  Luckily, yesterday was bright and sunny for my lesson. Because of all the rain, I hadn't worked Buddy for a couple days so he was very forward at the start.  In our flat warm up we worked on trying to pull him together and try to have some bending.  We definetly need to work more on our dressage!

In our warm up over fences, it was the same thing. Trying to pull him together and get him straight to the fence.  We were working on a short approch to a left-to-right diagonal.  He really wanted to fall to the right, so Jen had me aim for the left side of the fence and think about having a counter bend in the turn.  Once we got it at the trot, we move to the canter.  It was actually easier at the canter; he seemed easier to package and had a much nicer flow than at the trot.

We then move to a couple bending lines.  The first had us coming off the left on a vertical bending right to an outside vertical.  By this time in the lesson, Bud had gotten tired, so I really had to push him to the first fence, then immedietly land and pick him for the second.  We had a couple oops first fences, but once I was able to get a balanced first fence we were able to just roll down the line. The second bending line gave us a lot more trouble.

It was  a short approch off the right bending left to an outside oxer.  He really wanted to lunge over the first fence, pulling me out of the tack.  I wasn't able to get him back in time for the second fence, so after a couple run outs to the right, Jen gave us a placing pole to help guide Buddy. We worked on getting a short, waiting distance to the first fence so it was easier for me to keep him packaged.  Since the placing pole had blocked his drifting right, he then decided to drop his left shoulder.  I tried to keep my left shoulder up and back.

We had a couple pretty ugly distances at the oxer (there was one where I was sure we were going to land in a heap on the offside), but once I got him (mostly) balance it was ok.  We decided to quit when we got a somewhat nice flow thru the line.  He was getting pretty tired and compared to what we started with we had a huge improvement.  He was still trying to pull me out of the tack, but I'll definetly be working on that line when I jump on my own.

It rained again today, and according to the weather forcast it will on Saturday too.  I'm hoping it doesn't, because the plan was to move jumps out to the grass field on Sunday.  Keeping my fingers crossed for sun!!