Spots New Games

Annie has been playing with Spots in everything. She has been patterning him on barrels at the walk to help him learn to turn off her legs and neck-rein. This last week we added a "jump"; a pole on the ground between jump standards that we raised to one side in the cup for a couple days and finally to a full X. He had a learning curve at how to pick up his feet, then started getting into it and hopping over.

Marigold will lope up and will only trot over, she will NOT jump it. I'm not sure if it's because she doesn't think it's high enough to be worth her time or if she doesn't like to jump. Some day when they're in better condition we'll raise it to a bar and higher to see if she'll jump it. But we're a ways from that.

In addition to barrel patterns and baby jumps, Spot's is working on learning to canter around the end of the arena. It is harder to balance going around a curve, but he is gaining the strength and getting close to being able to canter the whole arena. Annie is also working on getting both leads at the right time. He struggles with his left lead.