Shoulders Out, Shoulders In and Side passes

The last few weeks, Zoe and I have discussed -- which horse to take to the shows next summer. I suggested.. work with two horses and then play it by ear as spring creeps closer. Zoe likes to have a firmer plan in hand than that. She's also lately been intrigued with the lateral movements, reading up and studying methods of teaching a horse to ultimately get that in a repertoire. Group all that with the fact that she and Elektra won the ICHO NATIONAL DRESSAGE CHAMPION AT INTRO LEVEL !! She's excited (check out my latest farm blog post-- re: our love of winning).

I put together a slideshow of candids of Elektra and Zoe at all the various shows.. many of the photo's you probably have seen in posts of the past. I am hoping the embedding code works OK.

Thursday - lessons all day and we are both just itching to get in the saddle. Zoe is anxious to put her studies into action with the shoulders in, shoulders out exercises in the big ring -- and me-- Keri and I are going to skip right to side passes :) seemed like more fun to me. Actually Keri already knows how to do a perfect side pass.. it's getting her to want to perform them everytime she's asked. Which might be just NOT in her personality to give that.. she's kind of the little girl with the curl.

This is all done at the walk.. Elektra has sticky shoulders.. so it's going to be a quiet patient journey.

Meantime, Keri and I are traveling around the ring, haphazardly stopping here and there for side passes where ever. She does them best when she's facing the fence. We tried stepping over the pole and moving down it both directions... as usual - sometimes she gets it.. sometimes she doesn't. And sometimes she stomps the pole.

We had fun -

Zoe tries to snap some photo's from Elektra's back --

Since it's late afternoon, Dominic watches us.

Rena (his sister) is at homework club.

When we are all done, Dominic proposes that Keri and Elektra race each other up the driveway. Even if I leave first, Elektra will win that one - she's a very powerful galloper.

We had fun -- being in the saddle is one of my favorite places to be :) Cuz I love my horse and I love my saddle .

Enjoy ~