Ride 15 (Wed)
Gone for a week, then to much going on to ride until over 1.5 weeks from the last ride. Typical to be able to ride daily for a while and then, bam, no riding for such a long time. This is why I wanted to start this diary of sorts- to see how these things affect him in order to be able to ride him better. He may be a horse that has to be ridden all the time. Alternatively, he may still "click" and understand that what I want from him is rated, controlled gates at all time. I have had other frantic horses that suddenly "got it", and were happy after wards to oblige even with breaks in riding.

The areas he had regressed on were interesting. Justin was not in tune to me compared to the last few rides, although he was still much better then when I first started the training regime. The most noticeable symptom of this was leads. Because he was no longer so in tune to me, the right lead was missed >80% of the time. I did not make a big deal over this because he does not "know" his leads well yet.

We worked on canter- halt- walk- canter around the peramiter of the arena. Stops from a canter were overall nice, controlled and straight. However, he launched into a trot from the stop (and not a walk). At the end, he had the idea though and was walking nicely.