I've hardly ridden over the last week which means Magic is enjoying a bit of a holiday. It's either been raining, too icy or I've been busy with one thing or another. I think I've schooled him once and lunged once. He's going very nicely when lunged, holding himself constantly and working over his back and he seems to be getting more even on both reins now which is good. I think the stretches I've been doing with him in his stable have helped a fair bit. Plus he enjoys doing them as he gets treats. Ridden work is still a bit off. Mostly trot work, walk and canter are improving all the time. He's progressed to being able to do a 10 metre half circle to the middle of the school, do a few strides of trot then pick up canter again to change the rein while getting the correct leads. We also tried walk to canter but we aren't quite there yet. He's still doing about 5 or 6 strides of trot before cantering and he's running a little but the canter he does do after isn't too bad and definitely not rushed or flat. We only tried walk to canter for about 10 minutes as I could tell he was getting a little stressed at not being able to do what I asked. The ears were going back and he was swishing his tail a fair bit so I left it and let him stretch in trot to cool off. The main thing is that he tries hard.
Magic has been very happy in his field the last couple of days. The two herds have merged while the drainage is improved in the lower field so he has a few new friends to play with. Yesterday he went out like a rocket, galloped up to his field gate and got bored when he had to wait for me to catch up so did a nice extended trot up and down the fence with a bit of bouncy canter and a few bucks added in for good measure. When I got to the gate he bounced around me before waiting patiently while I opened it wide enough for his to get through then galloped off flat out while throwing in enormous fly bucks just because he can. It's actually quite worrying seeing how big he can buck.
Today he was a little more sedate until his field mates joined him. Then he had a good rug pulling and rearing session with his friends and when they got bored he reared and bounced around on the spot for a while before settling down to eat. What's really nice to see is him actually cantering when he plays now rather than just extending his trot to keep up. Also his canter is now roughly the same pace as the other horses so he can canter along with them rather than trotting. It made me happy to watch him.
Before I start any more serious work with him again I'll be getting his saddle looked at and most likely reflocked as he's developed a hard lump on the left side of his back about half an inch away from his spine. He sometimes gets similar lumps when ridden in the summer due to him getting a little hot under his saddle pad but that hasn't been happening recently.
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