Lots of Ground Work

I'm getting a little bored of riding alone so much since I get to the barn more often now. To combat that I think I really need to start doing a lot more ground work with the horses. Starting today.

It was Cody's turn today to work on some cantering. But first we worked on some ground work. Axel stayed in the pasture and had a minor conniption about being alone. Cody and I worked on some of the moving away from pressure with turns on the forehand, which he got pretty well, and turns on the haunches - not so well. Worked on the bending exercises and some backing up. We did some circles at the walk and trot. We even worked on a little bit of ground tying which went surprisingly well. After that I rode for a while and tried to get some canters but we mostly ended up just trotting as fast as humanly (or horsely) possible. How did Steph get him to canter so well? We made a couple attempts at the various turns in the corners of the arena and then dismounted and did a couple stretches. I'm going to have to look at my horse massage/stretching books and get some more ideas for Cody to work on lifting his back.

I took Axel's screaming to mean he wanted to be worked with as well. The first thing we did was walk into the barn and then back out twice and he did it both times well. So he came into the arena and did some lunging. He did really well at the trot in the first direction, a little crankier in the other direction, and pretty cranky about cantering but that's pretty normal. I worked a little with the turn on the forehand from the ground, he got it okay but I think we'll have to keep working on that stuff with him a lot, he doesn't catch on and retain like Cody does. We then worked on some backing up, I wanted to back a whole lap of the arena but we made it around maybe 1/4 or more so that was pretty good. I decided I wasn't done yet and I didn't want to ride so I got out the long lines and the surcingle and we drove for a while and then switched to long lining. I think the long lines are too heavy though, despite having as much slack as he wanted he was still pretty frustrated and seemed like he was forced into a frame. Though good for him to stretch like that I don't think he enjoyed it. He was quite ticked when I asked for a trot and kicked out but manged to have a couple nice trots after that but they were very small and vertical. I tried to do some weaving but I didn't set up the cones before I hooked up Axel so I only was able to get out two and well it was just kind of a loss at that point. I did lunge him a bit more after the driving so he could stretch out the opposite way and he had a very nice extended trot. When we were done he backed out of the barn aisle one more time.