It seems as Spring came overnight. The horses all have 'spring fever' and are anxious to get at as much -barely there- grass as possible.
Saumur was much more 'up' today, high in the neck and checking out everything around him. I certainly wasn't his main focus when we started out. I tried to relax him in the walk, which is not his best gait anyway, he tends to get short and choppy. The warm up in the rising trot was fine, but when we moved into the canter it was much more difficult to keep Saumur's attention. Our canter-halt transitions were something like: "Hmm, maybe?, nah - I'd rather plow through the half halt, and if you end on my neck it's your problem". Sandy reminded me that the curb chain, against what I might think, is NOT for decorative purposes. Sure enough, once I reminded Saumur that there was such as thing as a curb chain he became much more polite and attentive. That doesn't mean hanging on the curb reins, though, just a quick, sharp reminder was quite sufficient.
Another thing I noticed was that when the work got more demanding (collected canter and small circles) Saumur threw in one of his spooks. Now, in this case I knew it wasn't because some monster was lurking. What it did for me was that after that incident I rode with much more purpose "you will do this - it's a circle, for heaven's sake!".
We finished with really nice canter work. Saumur had barely worked up a sweat, not something I can say about myself. I started stripping my top layers off in a short time.
With Chambord we did an exercise I really liked and that loosened him up: Head to the wall leg yield, quarter turn on the forehand and then head to the wall leg yield the other direction. I'll have to try that with Saumur.
So, now I'm curious how tomorrow's ride will go and I am looking forward to it. Outdoors?? Better have my little friend with me!
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