Nose to the grindstone

Nothing super exciting to report at the moment. Although, for winter in the midwest I have been doing really well on the riding front. Still getting in 3-4 rides a week - impressive considering we don't have an indoor.

We have been plugging away at second level. Straightness, strength, collection. Rinse, repeat. Hamper's canter has already made noticable improvement. Here's what else we have been working on:

• Transitions. Many MANY trot - halt - trot transitions. Pretty boring ... until you finally start to feel the results. That happened this week. He will give me 2-3 steps of big, lofty fancy trot. (please note that when I say fancy trot, I do not mean Hampton trots off like Totilas. But yes his very average trot is greatly improved) We also do trot-walk-trot. And trot - almost walk - just kidding TROT. Oh and canter - walk - canter. These have really started to improve. I just have to be careful that he does not shut down and just stop, but canter and then step into a forward walk. Lots of transitions within the gaits, too. Boring work, but vital.
• Leg yields. A straight neck = more engagement. We have the dramatic crossover (Hampton is good at it), but he needs to be a touch more responsive to my leg. Leg yield zig-zags have helped. We do a lot of leg yielding from the wall to the other side of the arena - that gives me the entire arena to do zig zags, or the "step ladder" excercise in which you leg yield - go straight - leg yield again. Also throwing in some leg yielding at the canter, too.
• Shoulder-in. Upping the difficulty a bit here. We have been doing shoulder-in at the trot, walk (keep the shoulder-in) and then back to the trot. Hampton will really step underneath himself here. Plus - more transitions! Yay! Shoulder-in at the canter really helps straighten him. Sometimes I throw in ranvers or travers to mix up the lateral work.
• Counter canter. This has been the key to improving Hampton's canter. It truly has taken his canter from a lovely First Level type canter, to a Second Level canter. Sometimes I just counter canter 'round and round' - asking him to flex his neck to both sides, but really asking for straightness. Sometimes I do serpentines. Sometimes we do true canter - walk - counter canter - walk and back to true canter (I think this is in Second Level Test 3).
• Half steps. Apparently this makes perfect sense to Hampton. I would have never predicted that from him. Maybe it's the in-hand work I have done with him - but admittedly I don't know what I'm doing there. His half steps are pretty good. I really have to resist the temptation to bounce on the spot for an entire 45 minutes. It is SO fun! I do a million trot-halt-trot off transitions and then for halt steps I half halt, lift my hands, slide my legs back a bit and cluck softly and Hampton goes "Boing? ok!!" Makes perfect sense to him! Whowouldathunkit? Even my instructor was impressed. I like messing with half steps because it helps bring his poll up.
• Super collected canter. Hampton has had a near gear installed. He has Working canter, collected canter and now super collected canter. He can maintain this for maybe 3 or 4 strides before he either breaks or gets pissy about it. It's not really fair to ask more of that from him at this point anyway. BUT it's in there. I play with that only a few times a week at this point because I don't want  him to stress out every time we canter.

So we have been working hard. There is a small schooling show at the end of Feb. that we may go to (depends if we can get a ride). It's maybe 3 miles away. If we do make it, I plan on doing First 1 and First 3. They do offer an adult lead-line class in which The Boy really wants to show Hampton. He is really excited about it and I think that is because he has no idea what he is in for. He keeps asking if he can wear a costume. I think he will provide entertainment for the horse show crowd if nothing else.