Good lesson tonight, after all of the miseries with Kip. Perhaps he senses that Sally is a lot more “alpha dog” than I am, or perhaps he just decided to work tonight for obscure horse reasons of his own. Only one or two refusals, but for the most part he was moving out in a very forward trot. We were working with Matt and Cookie, and Kip was fine with the other horse in the arena, something that I want to get him used to.
Tried some sitting trot during the lesson, with minimum grouchiness from Kip, although I don’t think his back is strong enough yet to do much of it. Sally asked about canter work, and I explained that it’s almost impossible for him on the lunge right now, let alone under saddle. I need to work on that, though – perhaps with enough lunge work he’ll become strong enough to be more balanced, and not seem as though he’s literally going to fall over in canter. I wish there were proper lanes and hills to ride out on, rather than just pavement and suburban lanes, as I always feel that a slight hill is the most natural place to get a colt to canter for the first time.
Anyway, he was good, which was all I was hoping for, and I gave him lots of pets and treats afterwards. We’ll see if we can continue that good work tomorrow, when it’s just us two. Phil was kind enough to come out in the cold and video it, so I’ll be interested to watch it and see how it looks.
