Pogo had a very busy week that included a lot of jumping and technical exercises, both mentally and physically tough for him. After our day of gymnastics, a rider from the varsity team hopped on to give him a try. Her mother owns a show barn and I thought it would be good to have a different rider on his back (as he is now officially for sale and will hopefully have people trying him out) and also give this girl an idea of what he is like in case she knows of anyone looking. She also jumped him around a bit (videos will be up shortly).
The next day I didn't want to work too hard, but took some time to figure out his lead change cue. Left to right is automatic at this point. If you land wrong onto that lead 9 times out of 10 he will swap within one stride, or at least by the corner. The other side I have yet to figure out, as we are usually late behind. I think he is a tad weak on that hind leg so its difficult as half of the time he was auto changing and half the time he was getting a good and proper change. Pogo did 6 consecutive clean changes when asked on this day, so he is for sure getting it down. I have figured that his cue is to push his hip to the new inside and lightly pull on the new inside rein to get the change.
This brings us to yesterday, when (as promised) we attempted to start putting courses together. Pogo is a little odd, if you canter a canter gymnastic, as for now he is a little confused. If you canter a single fence he is very good, just plops on over it, but put a line together and apart from a hard drift right when tracking left in a line, he goes on down like he has been doing so his entire life. I feel as though he has to feel something is a little more complicated to do well at it, otherwise he is just too quiet to care. I think it will come and quickly and he gave me a great, small course to end on. I think it also doesn't help we were inside, as once he gets rolling, his stride gets large and the indoor starts to feel too small for him.
Regardless he was a very good boy and after all of the jumping this week, he will have off until Wednesday. We will start back with some flat work, transitioning to some gymnastics by the end of the week and potentially putting another course together next weekend.
The next day I didn't want to work too hard, but took some time to figure out his lead change cue. Left to right is automatic at this point. If you land wrong onto that lead 9 times out of 10 he will swap within one stride, or at least by the corner. The other side I have yet to figure out, as we are usually late behind. I think he is a tad weak on that hind leg so its difficult as half of the time he was auto changing and half the time he was getting a good and proper change. Pogo did 6 consecutive clean changes when asked on this day, so he is for sure getting it down. I have figured that his cue is to push his hip to the new inside and lightly pull on the new inside rein to get the change.
This brings us to yesterday, when (as promised) we attempted to start putting courses together. Pogo is a little odd, if you canter a canter gymnastic, as for now he is a little confused. If you canter a single fence he is very good, just plops on over it, but put a line together and apart from a hard drift right when tracking left in a line, he goes on down like he has been doing so his entire life. I feel as though he has to feel something is a little more complicated to do well at it, otherwise he is just too quiet to care. I think it will come and quickly and he gave me a great, small course to end on. I think it also doesn't help we were inside, as once he gets rolling, his stride gets large and the indoor starts to feel too small for him.
Regardless he was a very good boy and after all of the jumping this week, he will have off until Wednesday. We will start back with some flat work, transitioning to some gymnastics by the end of the week and potentially putting another course together next weekend.
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