guess we've done some good after all

He doesn't look too bad for 21, does he?

So yeah, I didn't have much time to ride Jojo for a few weeks. And one day he came into the ring with the horrid goose rump of the elderly ex-racehorse. GAH! (See previous entry for more detailed whining.)

Yesterday was good; the basic suppling exercises worked and he was able to canter the 20-meter square quite well, and after that trot it passably. We did a lot of canter-trot transitions, and when I timed it correctly, he went into the bridle instead of going hollow, kept a good trot and then asked to stretch. The canter got a bit uphill, even, between the squares and the transitions. Not so much teeth-grinding - but the weather had cleared and the barometric pressure was back up, so it's SOP. Saturday, when it rained and he had been stalled overnight, he was grumping quite a bit, and didn't supple up enough to stop grinding until nearly the end of the lesson.

So today he got a break, we worked just at the walk, suppling and bending, getting on the aids and then suppling and bending some more. He got onto the left rein after 15 minutes of walk work - woohoo! This really is a record.

After 20 minutes of walk work, I threw in a few trot transitions, and he stayed in the bridle, on the aids, and round. Well, round for him. But after warmups, we're getting consistent working gaits, which sometimes aren't too bad. That is, real working gaits, not just working-considering-his-limitations gaits. I never thought we'd get this far.

He's still madder than a wet hen about some of the lateral work, though.