Fuzzy Louie

You can tell fall is here when you look at the horses.  The highs have been in the 50's-60's, and the horses are feeling the cool fresh air.  Their coats are still short, but they are starting to "fluff up" and right now they have that beautiful soft velvety hair that flattens back down when it gets warm. 

I had another great ride on Louie, working dressage type patterns.  I have been finding that mixing it up so much with circles, figure 8's, rein changes, serpentines, etc, really helps Louie's relaxation.  I've been having him do, for instance, cantering 1/2 of a circle, then trotting, then back onto the rail.  It's keeping him on his toes and helping me to plan my transitions and focus on precision.  He's not as relaxed as he has been through his back, but he's also not curling up behind the vertical as often either.  There's kindof a give and take there.

We're also working some on our lateral work, though I find that he loses forward impulsion after a few steps when I ask him to move laterally.  We need more work on that first, but I'm sure if I had a lesson with Marlene right now she'd bring me back to walking and trotting circles working on getting him to bend, relax, and "hold hands" with my outside hand on the bit.  I'll have to pretend she's there and work on making my circles smaller and larger to help make the lateral work a little easier. 

For now, I'm super excited for the dressage schooling show and the hunter pace I'm hopefully going to do next month.  I think Louie is too!