Rainy dressage day

What an odd day. Fleck was rowdier than Dan! 

It was another rainy gross day but COLD!! Bitter damp cold. I got on Fleck and took a lap around the pastures. He was WILD! I'm sure the weather had something to do with it. But he was freaking out about the cows again. I couldn't stop giggling because he was so animated. I swear it felt like riding an Icelandic pony doing the Tolt! His head was straight up and his back dropped and his hind feet were reaching in front of his front feet. Goofy! And fast! I was trying super hard to supple him because I know it's not good for his back but he was just not having it. Such a weirdo. We ended up taking two laps before heading into the arena. 

Once in the arena he settled down. Because you know... no cows! :) Except he was still on edge. We got some nice work at the trot and warming up. Cindy said he was nice and bouncy. I also found that if I led with my seat, not my shoulders, he did better too. duh! 
 And then we did canter work for the rest of the lesson it seemed. And at one point, Fleck was cantering across the center of the arena and Neon, who was being lunged (for the last 10 minutes mind you) came up behind him so Fleck tucked and spooked and bolted for a few steps. Wild man. But I was glad he was feeling good. 

But yep... Cindy was working us hard at the canter. She was working on progression from last week where we focused on riding the shoulder and not the head and keeping the shoulder in line with the jaw. She had us canter down center line and then had us do a 10 meter counter canter circle. HARD!!! So hard! Physically and for my brain! We managed it only once without breaking but it wasn't super pretty. Basically I have to ride his shoulders straight. But it's hard to not try to change the bend on that tight of a circle, but changing the bend makes Fleck have to swap. So yep. Hard. And when I don't change the bend, he leans. So keeping him straight is tough. We did manage a fairly decent near flying change. For us anyways. It wasn't a true flying change but it was more of a hesitation/skip than a simple change. 

So yep... lots of hard work.