The past two days have been the worst kind of winter days– frigid, damp and cloudy. It’s been hard to stay motivated when even winter breeches, a heavy coat and gloves doesn’t stop the bone-chilling cold.

I gave Bear the day off on Saturday after two good days in a row on Thursday and Friday. In our lesson on Friday we worked more on walk-trot transitions on a circle, making sure to keep the hind legs in the same rhythm.

Today, I was finally able to get my dad to come to my jump lesson and do some video. We went to a new place for Bear which has an indoor that’s enclosed on two sides. He was impressed at the vastness of the place when he got off the trailer, but settled into work when I got on.

The ring is quite narrow, about the size of a large dressage ring, and it tends back you off. I fell victim to that and rode a little conservatively, falling back into some of my bad habits. Lisa wants me to ride Bear nice and forward and not touch the reins and I took back a bit and got a little in my knee in the process.

I was also leaning a bit into the turns and using my inside rein too much to turn him, so I need to work on that. I’m going to try to simulate turns over poles this week at home and work on staying centered.

As a result, I screwed up a couple of distances for him, but he was nimble and figured it out and thankfully didn’t hold it against me!

The jumps were teeny tiny, but we cantered our first bounce and one stride. We also cantered a two stride, I’ve strides to a vertical. For the circumstances and my bad habits, I thought it was a good lesson overall.

I bumped up Oh So’s walking to 40 minutes today (and nearly froze my butt off in the process!) and I’m crossing my fingers we’ll be able to trot after his next ultrasound on Wednesday.

I’m off to Florida on Friday for eight days to cover some dressage. I’ll be thankful for the warmth, but I wish I could take my horses with me!