Transitions

I think I'll take TED's advice and go for the fecal analysis.  What's another vet bill, yeah?  *maniacal laughter*   In all seriousness, it won't be too expensive.

Meanwhile, Apollo did well last night again.  I realized that he is now as sound on his right (lame) side as he was on his left (sound) side two-three weeks ago.   Woot woot!  Progress!

Had some actual fun (*gasp*) in the canter last night.  Hee.   And started working on little lengthening and shortening in the walk and trot.  Very doable in the walk; in the trot, though, he goes "walk? fall on my face? head in the air? all three at once?"  Which means we need to do more of it and work on his balance.   This is what we've been doing all along,  but lately more side to side balance than back to front.  Not that we haven't been working on back to front balance, but I have mostly left it secondary.    I have been working on transitions between gaits and getting him to move FORWARD into the down transitions rather than fall onto his nose.  We got some good work on the trot/walk transitions last night, and the walk/halt is coming, so we'll keep working on that plus ground poles.  (Of course, shortening in the trot is good for ground pole work and vice versa.)

I think I'll keep working on getting a true, strong canter both directions before I work too hard on lengthening/shortening it.   And getting prompt, balanced up transitions.   His canter/trot transitions are pretty good, if canted somewhat onto the forehand.

So we increased intensity but not necessarily duration last night.  Yay us.