More western

So I rode Lucas on Sunday (we are trying to stick to a once on the weekend, and once during the week for the month of January) and we had another excellent ride. No spook no nothing and I was even able to get on him again without someone holding onto him.

So we did some side passing just to build on what we did last time. Hes really trying to figure out what my legs mean and I'm trying to be really consistent with what I'm asking and not just go to my hands to fix it. He is a really good boy, but I could tell when my legs were uneven by the way he was side passing (crocked) We then did some trotting and changing reins across the diagonals and worked into 2 tracking the second 1/2 of the diagonal then to 2 tracking the long side.

I'm not cantering yet but figured that I can work on that in another week or two.

I really worked on having him meet the rail at an even rate and using my leg gradually so that he didn't just go right to the rail but moved over gradually. I really tried to work on shifting my balance to 'open' a way to ask him to move into the rail as well which seemed to help. Any increase in balance and fitness will definitely help that! We also did a lot of work with one hand even some of a min pattern with come circles, turns on the haunches, backing up and trot poles.

We ended up walking the walking track 2 nights last week and again tonight, averaging about 2 and a bit km each time. Fitness goals are on track and will probably (hopefully) keep going they say the first couple of weeks are the worst :P

The first show of the year is going to be introductory AQHA so I hope to do the Showmanship, Halter, Equation, HUS, Horsemanship and maybe pleasure depending on the number of horses (Lucas can lope but his jog is still more of a trot and I wont ruin a class for someone else).