Week in review

Well, J and are I beginning to think we caught some sort of parasite in Costa Rica since we aren't really getting better.  Or, more accurately, symptoms come and go.  I felt pretty good Wednesday and Thursday and had a total relapse on Friday.  Blargh.  I will go to the Dr this week and see what we can find out.

Praise the horse lords, Fawkes released the giant stick from his butt this week and came back as the nice horse I know he can be.  With my photographer sick, photos are at a premium, but we got a few today.

Trot is coming along nicely

I did manage to ride almost every day which was nice, although several of the rides were 15 minutes long or a bit of ring work followed by a walk up the road.  Interestingly, Fawkes does not seem (extra) nervous about walking up the street by himself although I don't go more than 10 minutes away right now.

We had jumping lessons Friday and today.  Friday's lesson was working on adding flowers to a jump and we had a small epiphany.  See, when Fawkes gets squirrely to a fence, my innate reaction is to sit and drive him to the jump. It works, but trainer R doesn't like that.  I have struggled with getting him over spooky jumps without that fall back.  But on Friday, I felt him starting to wiggle, and - with my trainer helping - managed to just put leg on and keep him straight.  Lo and behold, he went over the damn jump like a pro.

Not the best eq, but look at how brave he was to the open distance.  Yummy, yummy mane.

We were going to work on more of that today but we got rained/hailed/thunderstormed into the indoor ring so instead we just worked on our usual straightness and rhythm.  To add the "spooky" factor, he had to canter over things the first time without sniffing it or trotting first.  I know, for most horses that is so ridiculously easy, but Fawkes gets really upset when anything changes - height, width, decor, lighting, sigh.

Sick photographer is also drunk apparently.  But dammit, I think that is the best I looked so I am including it.

Anyways, the good news is, he was very responsive and obedient and overall I am finally feeling the progress that just felt lacking in May.  We spent some time on canter transitions - i.e. don't throw him away with your hands- and then the single jump on the quarter line, circle, and then the line of poles up the middle.  Balancing for the tight turn is still challenging for me, but I definitely felt like we were getting somewhere.

Goals for this week hopefully include getting his clip job fixed and me getting healthy so we can don't lose this momentum!