Healthy Back Fitness Work is Hard!

So.... Fleck and I got our gallop in!!! Yay!!! Its a soggy misty kinda day but we mustered up and did it. Hauled out to the horse park for our fitness work. We did 25 minutes of trotting in the woods. And I TRIED to be good. I tried to make Fleck soft and supple and not hollow and inverted. I won too!! But man.. it's hard work. He was really "Up" today... guess he channeled his TB side. He was spooky and looky and therefore wanted to spend the entire ride with his head up high on full alert. I started out trying to get him to soften and supple but it just wasn't happening. I started to panic and get frustrated... I didn't want to resort to pulling his head down... and I also didn't want to let him keep trotting merrily along upside down.... AHA!! I remembered what Cindy said! When I can get him to soften with just inside leg to outside hand... focus more on bringing his back up and sending his barrel back to midline. And leg yield him back and forth. So we spent the first ten minutes of our fitness hack.... me singing "Go left... go right... healthy back.... go left.... go right... back up.... good boy....". Hee hee. And it worked! It took awhile for him to  settle, but I finally got that back up and those shoulders loose and swingy and him breathing!!! Granted each tree log required more effort, but still. It's a start!!! We managed to keep it for most of the ride and then we got to do our canters. He's MUCH easier to keep up in his back through the canters. So whoo hooo!!

I just need to focus on the Healthy Back part! It's better for him to use his back and lift it and oscillate than to invert and pull himself along with his forelegs. :)

Such a good pony!! We had fun getting our gallop on!!!