Lesson Neep: Strictly Not in the Mood, Dear

Busy week. Much slog. Many pages (though I need More). Much much organizing of new SW Lipizzan Association, which was started by two ladies in Texas and has rapidly expanded. Looks as if we may have a mini-clinic and meeting here in January, with visitors from Texas.

There are two young male cardinals flitting around the yard. There is a mating pair around here and has been for years--these must be the latest offspring.

The barn roadrunner is back. It goes off to nest in the summer (then I see two or three running around). In winter it comes back and lives around the barn.

I love winter here. Chilly nights, mornings in three layers, but midday is mild and pleasant, then toward sundown the chill comes in again. Pook has wheedled his way into being blanketed every night. The others are nice and furry and seem perfectly happy to run around naked.

Lessons this week were on Thursday. This meant basically we didn't do any homework, because after Sunday's lesson there were Monday's fall shots, Tuesday off for recovery, then Wednesday which featured Curt the Wonder Shoer and Pooka finally getting his shoe back on. I ponied ze keed off Capria--they enjoyed that--and took Pook for a short ride Out, which was Adventurous. He'd been cooped up for a week and he was feeling it. Boing! Boing! Boing!

So yesterday we had lessons. Keed was ready for his--he worked on stretching his neck and back, and going nicely forward, and being a good Dressage Horse. Then I brought out Pook. I figured he'd need a lot of free warmup, but that turned out to be all he wanted to do. Joni was messing with his head--she was picking rocks in the arena while he blasted around. Mr. Routine was appalled. "That's not normal! That's not what she does! PANIC!!!!"

Then he got annoyed because she wasn't watching him. We were supposed to watch him! That was what we were for! He started doing lovely sweeping figures in his high passage, closer and closer to Joni, until she finally looked up. Then he blasted off at top speed.

Yes, lynnesite, we devoutly wished you could have been there. It went on for almost half an hour.

Finally he decided it was time for me to get on. He was pretty pooped out after all that time at high speeds, and his back felt as wide as the living-room sofa. We worked on walk figures, softening his back and evening his stride. Then we did a little trot--even stride, even contact, balancing when he got crooked. He was holding himself in and not giving a free forward trot, but that was partly because he was pooped.

Even pooped, he rides as if he's on soft springs.

We agreed that he's past the basic-steering stage. It's time to start working on quality of gaits, encouraging more balance in movement and teaching him to reach forward over the back and loosen up his shoulders. This includes the rein aids we worked on last week. Very subtle with him, he's so light.

He has the gap in his back muscles again--he always gets one right under where I sit, and he has since he was a baby. The muscles develop from back and front toward the middle. When he's growing, there's a sort of hole there, where he has to fill in. I've been feeling it when I ride him.

So, for that, longeing with loose, doughnut sidereins over poles. That will up his work schedule from four to five days a week, but he's ready. No lollygagging with this one if I want to get him out to the shows.

This morning he's happier than he's been in a week. He got a ride, then he got to stay out all day and all night, and now he's back in the stalls but that's OK. He'll get out tonight. He presented himself to me to get his blanket off--left his breakfast and planted himself in front of me. Blanket came off, he went back to his breakfast.

Life with the perfect young gentleman stallion.