Progress all the way around

It is always nice to see progress in your horse let alone both of them! Yesterday I took Sky over to the arena across the road from us to see how she looked. I even drug my mom out with me to get some pictures of video, what a good mother she can be! Besides having a minor (well kind of major) melt down while tied to the trailer she got over it as I sat and stared at her as he proceeded to rear up and pull back. She hasnt done it before which is odd but I yelled at her to knock it off and she did. Must has been a wild hair up her butt, silly mare. Other than that she came off cool and collected which is nice. I dont like horses that dont travel well, its irritating. I have gotten so lucky with all of mine! I tacked her up and took to out for a nice long 15 minute walk before we started doing anything more. Even though she still isnt 'perfect' at the trot I really think that it has to do with both stiffness and weakness in her hind end. She lacks a lot of muscle back there in general because she isnt allowed to run around or even move to much. Then add that to it hurting and her over compensating on it I am sure she just needs a rehab program to bring her back (in the works). She looked pretty good but I noticed before that it was much easier to tell how sound she is if I get on her. So I hoped on her real quick and she feels SO much better than before. Like completely different, in a good way! I was so happy to feel that. We still have a long road ahead of us to get her going again but we have a plan in the works that I will tell you about if it all works out :)

She is so pretty! Cant wait to see her all muscled up!

Mystic has also been doing super good! Our last lesson we worked a lot on half halting in our leg yields to get him to sit on his hind end and get a nice straight cross over and not just a diagonal trot. So I have been working and it and got a couple good steps today! He is really hard to half halt because he just doesnt care about it and ignores you (along with the whip!). Occasionally you can feel him just completely tune out everything. Your half halts, you legs, the whip, etc all means nothing. After you get onto him good then for the most part he will come back and give you nice work but sometimes it can be a fight getting there. Over all he is progressing nicely and is getting all the concepts we are introducing to him. I worked a little bit on our lengthenings yesterday (Mary told us only to work on them about every 3 days or so because of his age) and he was so good! In our lesson he cantered almost every time I asked until the last one. Yesterday he only cantered less than half of the times and is really starting to understand it. Our transitions are also improving, our canter to trot are much less rushy even though he still is a little fast he is nothing like before.

Overall I am feeling good with where I am with both of them. Obviously it would be so much easier if magically one day Sky was perfectly fine and Mystic was 100 % ready for 1st level tomorrow but we all know that doesnt happen! I cant wait to see what the 2012 show season brings us!