It’s been a fairly quiet January, so not much to say. Oh So and I are plugging away at our flatwork and jumping, but we’re going through something and I’m not sure how to define it. It started with a tongue thing where he wasn’t completely accepting the bit and now it’s just turned into plain tension. We literally cannot do flatwork at home and it’s perplexing. He doesn’t seem in pain, but somewhere in the last month and a half we’ve lost confidence in each other.

I had a great lesson with Heidi last week. We worked on should-ins, did some lengthened trots and I sat the trot the whole time. So why can’t we produce that quality of work at home? He starts tense, then after cantering he hollows in the downwards transition and I lose him, usually for the rest of the ride. I can sometimes finish with a half stretchy circle in trot, but that’s about as good as it gets.

He goes fine off property, so one theory is that he’s getting bored at home. I would love to be able to hack more, but we don’t have the space and it’s been pretty wet recently.

I entered a dressage show this weekend and I don’t see how we’ll be able to practice our tests at home, so my plan is to just go and see how he is. Hopefully he’ll be better there.

I made an appointment with the vet to get a basic physical and possibly some acupuncture. He hasn’t really been seen by a vet since I bought him, so I want to see how he feels overall. We might do some flexion tests and I might ride him too. I just want to be able to rule out pain as a reason for whatever issue it is we’re having.

Our jumping is going quite nicely though. Lisa wants me to start cantering more gymnastics, so I did a canter to a one-stride and bounce last week and he was nice and quiet through it.

Sam has been going well too. We’ve been playing around with the double bridle and he’s been feeling really good from behind (besides tonight where he felt a bit funky).

Southern Pines opens today, so at least there’s something to look forward too!