Saturday 8th March

Today I managed to get out to play with Blossom in between all the rain!

We started with just walking round the field until we found a part of the field that wasn't totally waterlogged. We then started with playing with porcupine and driving, recently she has been walking away from the pressure more than yielding so I want to try and improve this so when we do start working on liberty this will be alot easier. We then moved on to yo yo game, we had to do quite a bit of approach and retreat as she lost confidence when she went past the 12 ft mark on the 22ft line. But she did get better and seemed alot more confident but still tends to go a little squint.

We then move on to circling game and got some really nice circles in both directions in trot and canter, she seems so much more relaxed in canter now than she used to be. I had the dog with me and he started barking at people walking past, so I had to get him back to me. So I got Blossom to disengage from the circle from canter, she slid to a stop for me then reared right up - she must have been up in the air for a good few seconds!! She then came down put her ears forward and came right to me. I think she was just playing!! I have seen her play like this in the field before, it was so cool to watch her like that with me!

We then played squeeze game over a couple of jumps, she just seemed to really enjoy it today. She was slightly unconfident from the right on the first send but then was great after that.

We then played with change of direction its getting better, but still needs alot of work. I'm still not sure I am positioning myself correct as some changes were great and others just didn't work... I think I will need to really concentrate on what I am doing more next time we play.

I finished of with jumping on her bareback and riding round the field, she could only manage a couple of steps then had to eat some grass so I just sat on her until she was ready to walk again. On the way back heading towards the stables she did get a bit excited so I had to bend her to a stop a few times. And we just managed to get back before the rain, which made it even better!