The Glorious 4th of July

I have already forgotten Friday, but I rode Saturday, Sunday, and today.  Saturday Beverly came by, so Lynne, Janine, and Amber all stopped in as well.  That was good for Pico.  We worked on canter departs, leg yield, and shoulder-in.  On Gracie I am still focused on the flying changes.  We did 10 meter circles, with a change in the middle of each.  That worked for three or four each way, then she got tired.

Sunday Lindsay came over and Mikayla also.  We did some musical horses -- I rode Pico and Indie, Lindsay rode Gracie and Pico, Mikayla rode Indie, Demi, and a little Gracie.  Very interesting sitting on Pico and Indie in the same time frame.  Pico is going to be much easier because he is so balanced and because he naturally uses his hind end a little.  Indie has lovely gaits, but no desire to use her hind quarters.

Decided over night that I had to be more organized, so I got out Major Lindgren's book of exercises.  This morning Lindsey rode Demi.  Mikayla, Lynne, and Meredith came over so there was some switching about.  Lindsey rode Indie and Meredith tried Demi.    I started on Pico and ended on Gracie.  We began with trot across the diagonal, then at X change the straight trot into leg yield.  That is really easy on Gracie and it can go all the way to half-pass without much difficulty (which I finally figured out involves changing the outside rein).  Pico can make the change to leg yield, but he doesn't have much (any) cross-over and it's challenging to keep him off of his outside shoulder.  We also tried leg yield to lengthening - need to put in a few thousand attempts at that.  I don't think his leg yield is good enough to get the lengthening, although there might have been a step or two.  We also worked on the intro to leg yield exercise -- out of the corner, a step or two of leg yield, then shallow serpentine, end with a step or two of leg yield.  For some reason I had thought Pico was getting pretty good at leg yield, but doing the same exercises back to back with Gracie high-lighted the error involved there.

Also did squares -- turns on forehand followed by turns on the haunches.  Need a few hundred more of those also.  Pico is better than Demi though. :^)

I was tired by the time I got on Gracie, so we did the diagonal exercise and half a dozen changes (did the up and down transitions a few times first of course.)

I am going to try to work through more of the exercises in the book as it did help me focus.