Calvin doing Grid Work

Finally got to bring my boyfriend today and had him be the photographer to get some much needed updated riding pics! Hence, this post is picture heavy and remember that most of these pictures will expand if you click on them.

 Calvin has come a long ways in the year I've had him and is starting to become a really nice riding horse--listening to cues, taking contact, leg yielding, and stopping with just using my seat, etc. We practiced more grid-work this week--I talked about the benefits of grid work in my other post. One huge benefit being that it doesn't stress their joints like jumping, yet it has them use their minds and bodies in different ways.

Happy baby! He had to go in the cross ties today vs. being tied hard on a hitching post. I've learned to hate cross ties because it limits the horse's freedom so much--they can't move their head very well. Usually I tie him to a post, but they were all being used today, that way he can move around a little more and get flies/itch if he needs to. 

Bridling

Ready to work! Notice how loose my noseband is (the part over his nose)--I fit 2 fingers in there. I learned in h/j world to just crank it down pretty snug. But really it should just discourage his mouth opening, not completely prevent it. This way he can drink water or grab a snack pretty easily, yet still can't gape his mouth to avoid the bit. I still don't know how I feel about flash nosebands...so I don't use one. Also if any English snobs out there notice my reins don't match the dressage bridle, it's because he stepped on them during my last fall. Hence I had to switch to my trail reins, which are actually more comfortable anyway.

Walking over poles, he's learning to keep his head in the right place now that he's building up topline. 

Trotting over poles now, nice position his neck is in and I'm really happy with that.  My hands are out "wide" because I'm encouraging him to go straight, you'll see that in my pics

Here you'll see he's reaching with his legs as my poles are set wider to encourage him to extend his legs. Also, so much dust in this arena because they're cutting down on water usage due to the drought. 

 Stay straight baby!

I encourage him to drop his head like this as it really stretches his back nicely. Like I talked about in this post, eventually I'll bring him up into the dressage frame, but he needs to build up his back and hindquarters first. 

 long and low at the walk

 Canter poles

 Some of my bad habits showing from h/j land--perching! Ugh, sit up straight!

More perching ugh. I like this picture though because you can see his great barefoot hooves

 That's better! Calvin is going long and low here. 

I really enjoy bringing up a young horse without the pressure of competition. I can't believe I used to jump so high when the horses were so young! Then again, they have to start horses really young when they need to jump 4'+ by the time they're 6. Anyway, I can clearly see Calvin is still growing so I can't imagine jumping a 4 year old now. Although just because I'm not competing doesn't mean I don't want to improve, hence our dressage training :) 

Bonus shot: even the boyfriend got to ride. Here he is learning to post, he has really nice posture--a natural!