Without family in the States and no interest in football (sorry, Jude!), the choice of venue today was easy: the barn(s)! First at home, where everyone got a good grooming. Saumur and Teddy are very woolly critters, and they thoroughly enjoyed their massages with the newly acquired 'Magic Brushes' from Germany.
Once Saumur and Teddy were clean and had plenty of hay outside we loaded up Chambord and went to join Remy at Topline, where we had the huge indoor arena all to ourselves.
Chambord was his usual cool self. He can have a lot of time off but then goes to work as if he had had a workout yesterday. Remy was eager to join his friend. As I've been working on making him more responsive to my leg with 'durchwachsen' (mixed) success I decided to try something new: take the spurs off and see what would happen. Surprise: Remy listened to my leg, we got good transitions and even prompt canter departs. So now I have to figure out what I am doing differently. I think I am so afraid to put my leg on (with the spurs) that I'm not giving clear enough aids. Good food for thought and something to follow up on!
Once home and thawed out under a hot shower I popped in a DVD I got in Germany: "Uta Graef - The intrepid dressage horse". Not much new, much of the things I have been practicing all along (hmm, and I still don't have an 'intrepid' horse?), but there were some good ideas to build on. Included also is a CD with noise, such as clapping, loud music that is played at victory gallops, etc. so it will be fun trying that out.
As to dinner: Fear not - no turkey had to die for us. So what does a German-American-French-American couple have for Thanksgiving dinner: Lebanese Takeout... and plenty of Champagne!
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