Grid Day with Over the Hilltoppers

So... I've joined the Horsemasters group, which is basically adult pony club. Since we piggyback onto Hilltoppers Pony Club, we became Over the Hilltoppers. ;) It's a fun club. I got suckered into being the Liason, which means I have to organize the meetings. Which... sometimes I do a better job and sometimes it turns into a disaster.

The March meeting was one of those disasters. Luckily, everyone rallied and things worked out a-ok.

Anyways... the mounted meeting was "Grids with Kim". She's tough!! She set up some canter poles to a cross rail... which Fleck and I floundered through. Kim wanted me to keep him round through the poles and to the jump. When he inverts, I lose my adjustability, so by keeping him round.. he can hear, and therefore respond, to my half-halts. Yep... what we've been working on. So.. we tried it a few more times and it... got a little better. After helping the others, Kim came back to me and gave me a quick private session. Her thought was that Fleck needed to be rocked back onto his hocks and really powering up to the jumps. He needed to stay round, use his back and be able to respond to my comments. In order to do this, we needed a BOUNCY powerful canter. She felt like he lengthens his stride, then goes past his distance, and then it's hard, so he quits. Again... all stuff I've heard before and am supposedly working on. (Kinda embarassing that I've been working so hard aon and it was still a disaster!). Anyways... she had me canter a skinny vertical on a figure 8 and get that bouncy powerful coffin canter. At first, Fleck kept blowing me off and taking off long... during which I wasn't giving up and held his face, floated his teeth, and... rode like crap.Which resulted in a lovely deer jump. (NOT Lovely!) So.. we eventually got it figured out and managed to create a bouncy sproingy canter.. get to the base of the jump.. and clear it. And then she increased the height... which started the fiasco again, but.. it quickly got better and we finished jumping boucny and to the base.. of this!!

Whoo hoo. So then, we were done!! YAY.. thank goodness. That was hard work!!

The unmounted meeting session was "Chiropractic Care for your Horse" by Dr. Dayton. Fleck was the lucky duck that got to be the demo horse. He was great. He enjoyed it and was a good demo pony. Christina did a great job adjusting him and he felt better!

Whoo hoo. Now he gets 2 days off!