60s to ice

The ground is frozen in North Carolina today, and so Sticky has the day off. I was really hoping to free jump her, but there is no point in asking her to do anything on the ground while its like that. But I had my lesson with Anne this morning, and the ground was frozen there too, so we didn't too much. We talked a lot about lengthenings, and practiced an exercise where we picked up the canter, came back to a walk in the corner and turned down the diagonal, and walked towards a pole set 6 strides away from a cross rail. The idea was to pick up the canter from the walk as the horse is about to step over the pole, and then canter down the line picking up the left lead over the cross rail. After the cross rail we turned left quickly (to avoid the icy part of the ring) and continued over the outside line. We cantered into the line, walked, and completed the last fence as a walk fence. This does not mean that we simply walked through the fence, but instead, walked up to the fence, and at the base then asked for the horse to jump.