Well, after the feeling last week that we were getting back into the swing of things, the weather and a bug (me this time) have conspired to keep me on the ground most of the time. Did manage to ride in the earlier part of the week and R was working nicely, offering lateral work with a good bend in it following all the reinforcement of bend work I did the past couple of weeks. We now have snow for the first time this winter, I suppose it is February and it was too good to last! The horses aren't bothered about it at all as they have just moved on to new grazing and are far too excited about being in their favourite field to be put off by the weather. After spending last night thinking I should go back out and check them again, as the snow just kept coming down, I got up this morning to find them refusing to come down to the yard and thinking me evil and boring for insisting they come in and have their breakfasts.
Teaching wise, I spent the week focusing on pole work and transitions, at the same time. Had several clients working over lines of poles in their lessons, set at 12' apart from the baby horse that had them at 24'. The main exercise once the horses were working over them in a nice rhythm was to perform transitions while going down the line of poles. This is something I do often when I'm working over poles and really encourages the horse to engage the hindquarters. I was very pleased with the baby horse as it was her first proper pole work session and she really got into the swing of things, doing both upward and downward transitions over the poles and listening to her rider even though it was all a bit exciting. The more grown up horses were surprising though as they found the exercise much harder than I thought they should have, mainly wanting to bomb along the line not listening to their riders. More practice is needed!