Rainy day dressage day

This post is a bit out of order, but I was way too excited to share about yesterdays lesson...so we dressaged on Saturday. The weather here on the east coast has been, you guessed it, non stop raining. It sucks, but I am trying to make the best of and keep on keeping on with our training.

Wet unhappy Tillie

Tillie has started her Doxy treatment and luckily hasnt been worse for ware since starting. She still feels really good and supple and happy to work.

schooling saturday and she was happy to work

We did a jump school Friday practicing what we learned in our lesson with Dom that previous Wednesday. It went and felt so much smoother which is nice because it tells me she is learning...the only mistakes were piloting error so I am trying realllllly hard to give her the best ride possible. I guess it will come with time...

Saturday was so yucky we decided to haul to the indoor where we take dressage lessons to school. I dont mind riding in the rain, but once in a while its nice to have access to such nice state-of-the art footing to ride on to eliminate the blips in the footing in our ring.

Starting to get better about those lengthenings! 

Tillie was all business when we arrived and ready to work. I started off trying to get her to stretch a bit with this being one of our goals. I know this will help keeping her loose and swinging in her back which will help her while being treated for lymes and its also a movement we will be tested on in training level tests so we need to get more confirmed at it now.

Pats for a good girl trying so hard

Tillie did a really nice job staying connected in the contact while stretching down...in the past shes poked her nose out and lost that nice full feeling in my reins.

Some video of stretching and starting canter work:

After this we did some canter work and while the transitions still leave something to be desired, the canter itself felt way more comfortable for me to ride and much more soft through her body.

Here is some video of our canter and lengthening work:

She did break once into canter, but C has told me in the past this isnt a bad thing and to not reprimand her...forward is good and its the correct answer, but usually shell break if I am not 100% even in both stirrups or half halting enough evenly. 

Starting to get more uphill!

I am very eager to try the Custom Saddlery VLX this week and finally get a dressage saddle again! But shockingly my jump saddle seems to have worked well for us in the meantime.