Tuesday, August 31, 2010

In The Light...

It took a lot for me to finally decide on a show name for Chester. My original list included: "Embarcadero" (hence the name of my blog), 'In The Light' (one of my favourite Led Zeppelin songs) and "Let It Rock...how I ended up with Sppin' On Sunshine was a result of a song I heard in which I instantly fell in love with the first time I heard it.
From the beginning, In The Light - was a close close close runner up. Why? Simply because EVERY TIME I ride, Chester has a light bulb moment and I can almost hear (and definitely FEEL) him go "Oh, I GET it now!!". Last night, was no exception.
Keeping in mind that we are working on Chester's front end, we are going to be doing a lot of gymnastics, a lot of trot poles to a canter pole to a single fence/oxer...that is what I was working on last night. Me - getting the timing of my aids to help him get his front end in gear and him - getting his front end in gear. We (well, I) set up 2 trot poles to a canter pole to an 'X', Chester watched. Our warm up was great (speaking of which I have also changed around a little bit...anyway, more on that later) and about 20 minutes in, I pointed him in the direction of our line. He came at it, went uh what? and sort of deer hopped over it...ugh...try again...by the third time over, he was going like a champ, getting his lead and snorting happily to himself upon landing. AWESOME. I can literally FEEL him get it and become more comfortable. By the end of the session, we were cantering into a pretty significant sized oxer, which he didn't touch...once. He was oozing confidence and was pretty pleased with himself.
I love it when he is like that.
Off property xc schooling tomorrow morning. Ditches, banks, drops, water, scary fences...bring it on. I. Can. Not. Wait!!
Chester had better get over this water phobia he has or his career as an event horse will be short lived!! I'm hoping he is In The Light tomorrow...that's fore sure.
More soon.

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