A cob that does dressage... well sort of

I've mostly hacked Magic out since our lesson, in fact I think he's only set foot in the school maybe 5 times since then and I think only two of those sessions were proper flat work sessions. I've lunged him in his fake Pessoa a couple of times and we had a short jumping session (in a borrowed saddle) where he didn't get excited and didn't pull me into the jumps, cue me worrying. He always pulls me into jumps even if he's going to stop when he gets to them.

We did a hunter trial the day after which I didn't need to worry about, there was no sign of bucking or rearing. The only problem was that he still wasn't pulling me into jumps and when we do cross country this is totally unlike Magic. I always have no breaks and I like it that way. Instead he was looking at every single jump when he got to it, again really unlike him. He always looks at the first two or three than realises what he's supposed to do and then tanks off round the course. He's fairly fit so that wasn't the problem either.

I upped his feed the day after and so far he seems a little more awake when working.

Our last flat work session was interesting. I haven't schooled him properly for a few weeks and he seemed to have forgotten a lot of what he knew before. With Magic this means he's trying to find out what he can get away with not doing. Picked up my schooling whip and he was instantly more willing for forwards without even touching him with it. He even felt the need to do laps of the school at a very fast canter while i had no breaks so I decided to do some rein back and turn on the forehand to get him focused. After that we did some nice collected and medium trot work before having a much steadier canter on each rein.

He does seem to have forgotten that he can bend to the left but hopefully it won't be too long before he realises he can do it. His back is due for a check up so I'll be asking why he finds it hard to relax his neck on that rein both ridden and on and lunge.

Lastly here is a video still of Magic doing extended trot. Just need to find the right buttons so i can ask for it now!