The weekend went by so fast! Here in Salmon Arm the weather has been so odd. Last night I rode Bugatti at 6 pm, and in the middle of a wind/rain storm. Everyone else at the barn bailed, but in my opinion, you cant pick the weather at a horse show, so I might as well go about as if it was a normal day. Tacking up, my saddle pad blew off my saddle and literally hit Bug in the face, and all she did was take one step back and look at me like, "Hey, your saddle pad is taking off, you might want to go grab that."  With the heavy rain on the barn's tin roof, it was so noisy, as well with branches falling off trees and blowing around, but she couldn't care less.

So I took her to the indoor and warmed her up, rain coming in sideways through the arena and wind howling. So impressively, she just focused on me and went to work. Lots of free walk, some leg yield along the rein until she really accepted my inside leg on her girth and didn't try to run past my outside rein.

She is hollow to the right and stiff to the left (leans against my left leg) so my focus right now is bending her when on the left rein, and straightening her when on the right rein. She accepts the contact much better now that I switched bits from her runner double jointed plastic loosering (happy mouth) to a KK ultra double jointed loosering. She has some substance now to be able to find support on, and I feel like my half halts can go through her body.

We are working on not only rhythm and creating her equally supple on both sides, but also the transitions within gaits that she stays over her back and reaching for the contact instead of hollowing and coming above the bit. I don't want her to respond to every transition or half halt with tension in her topline. It's something that is hard to fix down the road.

So, getting there. She's a good dance partner :) That hind leg just never quits!