It's about the feet

My session this weekend consisted of going through the plan James Roberts gave us to see where the sticking points are.   When I was sitting at James’s I knew I had done it all before during the summer with her and we where working on the riding fine. But in the past couple of months the riding has changed so I thought it would be a good idea to start from scratch and see where we get stuck.

So here goes,
* Have your horse catch you - She trotted down the field to meet me 'tick'
* Halter with Savvy - when I stood next to her neck she brought her head round and put her nose in the halter before I asked, 'tick'.
* Touch all over - yes including mouth and 'private' areas - even got a blissful look on her face when I scratched her between her teats - 'tick'
* Place down the feet - not so hot, picked it up nice then tried to stamp it down when I went to place them, got there eventualtulay but not up to the usual.  Interestingly the back feet where 10 x's better then the frount feet.  During the summer I could pick up and place her feet were ever I wanted them, as many times as I liked, even while she was eating. Need to work on this.
*Standstill - perfect 'tick'


This was as far as I had planned to go today as the ground is to wet to play on, but I spent some time grooming and scratching her. Also did some lateral flexion on the ground, a bit sticky but not to bad.


All in all a good session. It what was interesting was how much has changed in the placing of her feet that I haven’t noticed until I really started thinking about it, no wonder our riding has been off! So my plan is the everyday I will pick up and place her feet until they are better than the day before.