November 15th

I had a meeting at a customer site and got done early so I was able to pick Bayley up, feed her and head out to the barn to meet a friend who so kindly watched Bayley till Sean got there so I could get on a little early. She fell asleep on the way up there so I parked the car, got my tack and grooming stuff ready by the cross ties and fetched Henry. Still sleeping so I groomed and tacked him up. Once Kat and Andy got there I headed down to lunge (since they were now on baby duty).

On a side note ...  my trainer acquired one of those lights that construction workers use to light up our arena so that we can ride outside when it's not raining (when it rains we will go down to the covered arena). It was weird riding in semi light and then by the time I got off it was dark dark dark.

Henry was pretty good in the dark.. no really big spooks.

Irene had me working a lot on asking him to slow WAY down in the sitting trot and me really holding him together which takes a lot out of me but I feel like I was progressing through the lesson. Also she had me doing lots of changes of direction weaving through the jumps and even changing his bend (the best that I can with a green horse) which was fun to see we are progressing! Lastly she had me work on small circles with him around jumps and making them even sized. Since I am still doing a lot of direct reining on him it was a good leg work out for me to really incorporate and support him with my leg. I know circles may sound like a basic concept (well they did to me haha) but a tight circle on a green horse w/o any bulging and getting it equally round on both sides take some work! HA

I felt like we had a good ride and now I have more stuff to work on Thursday :)