Short but successful - Dressage Lesson #15

Something about Jeff and a camera makes Axel go lame. I kid you not. Last time he came out to shoot my lesson, Axel's back was so sore you couldn't touch it without him buckling. Last night Jeff came out to shoot Beau but also maybe take a few shots of my lesson and Axel was gimpy once again. He did get a few shots though. Axel was being his usual slow self while I tried to lead him into the pasture where we were going to ride. But that wasn't anything knew so I hopped up and off we went. We started with some bending right and left while standing to loosen up his neck. He's a pretty stiff guy, but it definitely helped to do the stretches. He was actually pretty forward and bending pretty decently to the left. We did some spirals out and worked on his "bad corner," the corner of the circle he always falls out on because it's closest to the gate. He was doing very well otherwise. Then we switched directions and he was very unhappy. Luckily Axel's unhappy is expressed by tiny little baby bucks, if you weren't paying attention you may not even notice. We tried to get him around the circle a few times in case he was just being ornery but he kept bucking. So I took him around the whole pasture asking for an extended trot to get him moving, more bucking. Tricia helped him stretch his front right leg a bit and we went around the pasture one more time. This time he was nice about it, but you could tell he still hurt. Since he was nice, we ended the riding portion of the lesson and decided to do a little bit of ground work. We just did a bit of rope work around his belly and legs, could be compared to Parelli's friendly game. Then we did some more bending his neck. And we finished with having him unwind himself from the rope if I wound it around him. So it was a short lesson but he did pretty well, so he deserved the reward of a short lesson. Hopefully by Saturday or Sunday he'll feel better so Tricia can ride him on the trail a bit.

I haven't seen the photos yet but I'll be sure to post them when I get them from Jeff. I cleaned up Beau and we took him down across the creek. Unfortunately we lost a lot of light and Jeff doesn't think many shots turned out. I might have to try to take a few of my own on Saturday or Sunday just in case. Hopefully he ended up with a couple that work. All we really need is one really good one to print as a portrait.