Work in Progress

Saw Maybellene in work with Christine Crawford mid-week. She's only 5 years old, but happily schooling 8 - 10 metre canter circles preparatory to being asked for canter pirouettes, trot and canter half-pass, a few steps of baby piaffe, the beginnings of a powerful medium trot. Looks Awesome. She's getting stronger all the time and really loves her work!
It's lovely to watch Christine proceed with "schooling of the horse" as opposed to 'schooling for a competition test.'

The previous week I took Paeon up the road to see Craig Barrett and get an assessment of his jumping ability to plan the next directions in his training/career. Craig lunged him over a little jump race of cross rail to oxer and raised the bar and complexity a number of times to see how he would cope.Pan hadn't lunged outside a round yard before, let alone over poles/jumps, but behaved well in an open arena, with RAAF jets flying low overhead and an eventer in training galloping along the fence-line. A bit of stalliion-esque snorting initially and some huge flagging, saddlebred trot but he quickly settled when asked to work!
He wasn't looking very carefully initially, but settled well to the tasks and showed a good eye for the jumps increasing in height and width, a ready willingness to solve the jumping questions asked, a good reach in front and a very snappy hock tuck behind. Brave, too! He didn't show any resistance to what he was being asked to do and learnt quickly to pick up his feet when he touched a rail.
He definitely has potential!! He was very interested in whatever Craig was doing and followed him around checking out everything while he manipulated the rails etc.
Since Craig hasn't got the space to quarantee him a competition start this year, my next task is to find an opening for him with a young eventer!!

All I need to do now is win the lottery and I can keep 2 in work! I Wish!!!