Amazing how a beautiful day makes work so easy! Finally it was nice enough to take everyones rugs off and let them have a scratch and a roll, they really went to town lol.

With Giant today I focused mainly on lateral work and establishing a few steps of proper travers. So we warmed up just in walk going through our shoulder in exercises, and getting him to really flex and chew a bit softer within them. He finds the angle easy now, its the flexion thats the hard part and when he does flex and soften nicely he crosses over much better.

I started with left travers, the way that was going to be harder as I know I will work harder and longer on the first way. I started him the same as last time, in right shoulder in (so that his quaters would be left) and then straightening him out and finally asking for slight flexion right, this gave him the basic idea.

Once he had that I went straight into travers from a corner (by not quite finishing the corner he s already in a travers position). Keeping him really slow so that he could sort himself out step by step he got the idea of it and by then end we were able to get a few really nice crossing over steps on both reins. He was quite funny, I could see him really thinking and concentrating on where he had to put his feet, he was trying really hard.

With Harry I wanted to work on improving the quality of the shoulder in. Like Giant he is ok with the angle, but he really does find stepping across hard, he is quite stiff behind. So I broke it down again and got him walking really slowly so that he could take it one step at a time. This is the part thats good for him, getting him to step quietly away from the leg without going faster. Especially on the right rein he just wants to move off faster and turn in the direct of the bend. Keeping it slow and using a combination of neck reins and leg he got it much better.

We did a bit of his canter as well and for the first time he got it right everytime. First time he did it great without thinking, after that he knew what was coming and was thinking about it so it took him longer, but he got it. Everytime we came back to trot I just give him time to relax and stretch before I ask him for canter again so that he doesn't get all flustered.