Argh it's been ages since I updated this *hangs head in shame*
Since my last update Magic has been XC and enjoyed every moment of it. We did the 2ft6 class which is the biggest we've ever competed. He hadn't jumped since October so I was a little concerned but I shouldn't have been worried. My little star tanked me round a very up to height course of fairly scary jumps and didn't look at a single thing. In fact he was too keen and jumped an extra jump getting us eliminated when we would have been placed in the time we finished in but an extra jump is far better than a refusal or run out so I can't complain.
The time off work clearly did him the world of good schooling-wise too. He seems far more flexible and willing to work round and hold himself. His outline is consistent in walk and trot and coming along nicely in the small amount of canter we do.
Out hacking when we aren't doing fast work he is still asked to work in an outline and does a fair amount of collected trot work to build some back and bum muscle. He gets to do short bursts of medium trot too which he enjoys and shows it by getting really strong. The collected work seems to have had an impact on how relaxed he is in his neck in trot. He's always had a tense neck in trot which has meant he's found it very hard to work round but lately when I've asked him to stretch he's offered some nice long and low work in trot while staying round and is super responsive when asked to leg yield in trot backwards and forwards across the road so I couldn't be happier with him in that respect.
He's slightly less forward in the school but he always has been. Canter still needs a lot of work as he struggles to maintain it and also right lead takes a bit of time to get. He's still quite unbalanced and so am I in canter so I'm not really helping him. I realised after my schooling session on Monday that I've never really asked him to maintain canter on the lunge, because I know he finds it hard work I've only ever made him do a circle or two at a time so while he can canter for a good mile at his own pace in a straight line out on a hack, he finds it difficult to keep cantering in a small enclosed area and even more so on a circle. On Tuesday I started work on this by lunging him mainly in canter. He had a good warm up in walk and trot and then did about 15-20 minutes working on canter and walk to canter. He's getting quite good at it after he gets over being a stress head about it.
I'm going to be working on his canter, my balance and getting him more responsive in the school over the next few weeks.
Since Magic was on box rest for his knee injury we really seem to have bonded. I've had him nearly 5 years now and while we've gotten on fairly well the last 3 1/2 of those it wasn't until he spent so much time we me without contact with other horses that we really clicked. Now he's very protective of me in the field and even stands up to horses that are above him in the herd while I'm around. He's become more affectionate and today he let me trim his beard with the clippers when normally he hates being clipped. He even let me trim all his whiskers and above his eyes. When I put him back out in the field I gave him the usual mushy speech about how I love him and how he should try not to get hurt, patted him and kissed his nose and he nuzzled my arm, usually he only does that when I've found an exceptionally itchy spot. After that he watched me walk back up the field before running off bucking. I do love my boy <3
