Toasted Marshmallow

TC has been doing really well lately as I stated, but the pony is low key outshining him. I'm really impressed!

He's so fancy right?!

The pony is further along than TC, he is cantering most days and I'm doing more changes of direction on him in trot than TC is doing. I'm being more careful with TC because I'm sick of waiting to get back into things with him. So I'd like to do it once and not have to back off again. The pony though, he is just a fun pony to play with so I don't mind nudging him along a bit faster. If he can handle it, great! If he tells me to back off, I will absolutely do that. So far he seems to be doing well though! 

The biggest thing I've noticed is that his little pony pot belly is gone. He has gained so much core strength in the last month! He also keeps randomly asking to gallop. He's always been a lazy little guy so that's fun and unnerving! 

Fancy pony with no belly!

I think while he is ahead of TC right now, he'll eventually be surpassed by TC in the dressage department. Obviously TC has been to Third level already and has all the movements confirmed. I think that once I get the muscle on him, it'll be relatively smooth sailing. It's just getting the muscle on there and then showing him how to use it in the movements that he already knows. 

For the pony though, he doesn't have that training, and he doesn't have as good of basics as TC does. That was something the clinician really helped me realize: TC has fabulous basics, he just got into this bad pattern with his underneck and psoas firing improperly. Under the bad patterns is a really well trained dressage horse. I'm excited to have access to that again! 

Underneath the bad pattern for the pony is... a pony with only okay basics. Nothing against his previous training, he's just trained in a different way. He does The Thing, meaning he puts his nose down, but he has a faulty oscillation in both walk and canter and he yields to contact rather than reaching for contact.

ACTUALLY REACHING

Luckily contact issues are my favorite thing to deal with. First, I've been aggressively following (er... what do you call it when there's nothing to follow though? lol) the oscillation at the walk, even on a loose rein and even when we are walking down the road and back. Next, I've been really working on my bear down and two pack line. The bear down to push his neck down and into my hand. The two pack line to keep his neck reaching up. His tendency is to either brace on his underneck or press his little pony forehead to the ground. 

He's been kind of ignoring me about it. This is his MO, I'm realizing. He's like a shy kid. You kind of just have to be like THERE IS ROOM FOR YOUR NECK HERE BUT IT'S COOL IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THAT. For everything. I just have to make room for him to do the thing, low key nag him to do it, and then wait. Then he eventually tries the thing and then it's just how we do things from then on. 

TC, on the other hand, just oozes into space made for him immediately. TC is a liquid and Sunny is a marshmallow that you need to toast a bit to make him gooey and then he'll ooze into space made for him (such as between chocolate and graham cracker). 

He's so cute

Finally yesterday he felt AMAZING. He started out a stiff little marshmallow who didn't want to go forward and was a little nose-in. By the end he was galloping around the arena with his little pony ears pinned forward and was having the time of his life. He broke to trot and gave me a LEGIT MEDIUM TROT. 

I'm so glad I've taken the time to put him on a stick and put him over a fire. He's really turning out to be quite cool.