Winter Solstice

Finally! I'm so excited that the days are now going to get longer instead of shorter.

Tonight the temperature was in the high 20s, so I took the opportunity to work with the quarters. I lunged Coriander, who was fantastic as usual. I was paying closer attention today and noticed that it's not just the canter to the right that's difficult for him, he's stiff going in that direction in all his gaits. We're going to have to do some suppling work to loosen up that left side. If anyone reading this has any suggestions, let me know.

Then I decided to lunge Gwen for real, not just circle around me a little on the lead rope like we have been. The first thing I did when I brought her into the indoor was let her loose so she could check out the jump standards that were put up since she was last in there. She then decided that she wasn't going to let me catch her, no way, no how. She would run right by me when I approached her with her head and tail in the air. Just giving me the finger. So I picked up my lunge whip and went all Chris Irwin on her behind. Every time she ran past me she got tapped, every time she ran off after standing still while I approached she got tapped. She's definitely the kind of horse that needs to respect me completely, she's so flighty and nervous that she'll hurt me otherwise. After I finally caught her, we lunged. She stepped out away from me fairly well and I think towards the end she was finally figuring out what "walk" meant. Gwen got two good lessons in today.