Cody is not a Dressage Pony

So Wednesday was day 5 for Axel on bute. The swelling has gone down to a usual knobby arthritic size but he's still lame. Not *as* lame as he was on Sunday. I'm just happy he actually ate powdered bute from a bucket this time with very little fuss. Apparently bute + MSM tastes better than bute + antibiotics. I'll have to make sure there's always MSM around (which I will taste myself one of these days). I did an extra good grooming job since I'll probably be out at the farm this weekend of course I think it's supposed to rain the whole time so my grooming is probably gone to waste already along with the fly spray. Still June and I think I have to go buy another bottle. I might have to break down and get the big jug.

So I grabbed Cody and got him groomed up quickly and threw on his tack to ride in the arena with A and Danny. We're still having troubles tracking left but not quite as severe as before and I'm sure it makes a difference that this was day two of me riding him. I played a little with contact and trying to get Cody give to it, he did figure out the little exercise A showed me after a few tries. Part of his problem is that he doesn't like contact, it stresses him out or makes him nervous. So if he surges, I accidentally put more contact on the reins and then he freaks out and takes off even more. I don't know if it's worth it to try and get him to accept more direct rein contact or for me to learn to ride with less contact. Maybe a little of both? We actually had one nice round to the right of canter peppered with some bad spazzy moments but we ended up riding for more than an hour I think working on various things. So I still really need to get some long reins and work on ground driving with him as well as work building up his back. And then on top of all that my dressage saddle does not fit it. It's actually too narrow if you can believe that. But unless I some how stumble on an inexpensive saddle that fits we might be out of luck for a while. Anyone have a wide tree cut back 18" dressage saddle laying around?