Progress

First off sorry for the video quality, my 7 year old is not the best videographer but she did a fine job.  Then the quality is bad cause it was taken on my camera.  To add to all of that is was really windy which made it noisy.  But the point of the video is to show off Steady's head position he is getting so good with it.  He really puts his head low and really feels for the bit.  He is so much more collected and his balance is so much better.  He seriously had zero balance.  He can even actually bend now.  He was like a board when turning right at the begining. Even his canter is coming along nicely but I am not posting videos of that quite yet.  Though I should have done a before and after of it.  He first started not knowing any signal for leads and only picking up his left lead when asked and doing random flying changes when not being asked.  Then he would go tooooooo fast I mean not racing fast but too fast.  And at the turns were the worst he would cut the turns and really pick up speed around one of the turns.  After seeing some of his racing videos the last turn is when he picked up the pace and came from behind to win.  So I do know why he does it but not really practical for a dressage ring.  Then he started almost loping instead of cantering.  From one extreme to another.  Well yesterday he had a very nice canter and even started listening when I asked for him to tuck his head and collect himself.  But only for a moment, so we have a ways to go.  It is progress though and that is all I can ask of him.

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When I first started my lessons a few months back I thought there was no way either of us would ever be able to pull of anything that resembled dressage.  Well we are on our way.  Not in any hurry but on our way.  He needs to take things slow and so do I.  I still have weight to loose and get into better shape.  So I hope hope hope that next year will be the year for us to event.  But even saying seems a long shot.  But I think I will be surprised when next spring rolls around.

My instructor said we are ready for our first small show!  I am excited about that.  It has been sooooo long since I have showed it will be like learning all over again.  So I am meeting up with a lady I met via internet at a show this weekend without horses.  Just to get the feel of it again.  I came to know her because she bought an OTTB about the same time I did from the same lady.  Actually she almost bought Steady and that is how we started emailing.  So I am lookng forward to hanging around the show and observing.