Last week

In honour of breaking 1000 page views this week, I've finally put up a cute little custom banner!

On to the real story:
Felix has had a great week.  I am still paying Devan for pro training because I'm too fat and out of shape to ride for more then 15 or 20 minutes at a time at trot - and maybe half an arena lap at the canter. Also, my position is an absolute DISASTER. I will be posting some pics and vids so you can see how he is going, and I'll keep my fingers crossed they don't land on the Bad Riding blog.  I am accepting suggestions for any excersize program that needs no equipment, can be done easily while traveling and takes less then 30 min a day.

I rode 3 days last week, and Shauna had her first ride.  He's doing very very well, and now that he steers more or less properly I am trying to start him on some basic dressage patterns and w/t transition acuracy - which is going quite nicely.  I'm also working a little on his free walk, which is pretty horrid but we will get there. He just does not know to stretch down when I drop the reins yet, but it'll come in time.

Here is a couple of short videos showing a trot down the center line then a halt as is often found in entry level eventing dressage tests:

He seems to get a bit bored with extended walking,  and is a bit fidgety with the head, as seen in this video. I remember going through this with Dottie to a small degree, so I hope with time it'll go away.  It may also be his way of offering up a bit of a frame in the walk, as I believe Devan has been working on this with him:

Shauna did well in the trot too - she's a little floppy but that's only becuase this is her first ride in nearly 2 years, and really 3 since she's ridden consistently.   As you can probably tell - Felix is definitely the type that you need to tell to go forward, which suits me just fine - though he's WAY more quick off the leg now then he was a month ago:

And here is some various riding and pose with the pony pics.  I'm thrilled that Shauna loves him, seeing as I'd like her to keep paying half the board!!