Sitting Trot and Hill Work

Yesterday was a pretty big day as I was bound and determined to fix this sitting trot mess. And since it's hasn't started getting dark until 7, that meant it could start spending some time out of the arena and on the conditioning hills. 

Cody is at a point, now, where he is ready for First Level, his lateral work is on point (for the most part), and he lifts his back up for the lengthening's and reaches for the longer stride. But, his only setback has been that he needs more butt muscles, so he can hold that sit from the lengthiness trot longer than just the short, 20 meters. I can already feel him gaining the muscle for a more noticeable sit when I go through a corner and he comes out truly rocked back into his haunches, but for him to be successful at  First Level, he will need much more muscle on his haunches. There is already an extremely noticeable difference in his topline muscles compared to last year that the barn owner made a point to say that she didn't think he would get to this point until June or July (yay!). It's amazing to see the change happen over the course of seven months, from bringing him in to ride and his neck was so incorrectly muscled that there was more muscle on the under side than the topline, and to see that now, he has this beautiful arch to his neck when he stands in the cross ties. It's such a big difference because not only is it muscled, but half of his mane falls on the opposite side than before, which means he's building muscle on both sides of his neck. 
 

So today, that's what I worked on. I took Cody out to the cornfield, where the owner had cut a path so I could ride on it, and I just trotted up, asking for a big, lengthen trot (which really made him use his haunches) and I came down in a stretching trot or collected walk. A couple times I cantered up, but I think we need to work up to that, although it was extremely bouncy, and he was really sitting. I was blown away with how great his trot was, I could feel him sit with his haunches and drive up the hill. I think today I will do more hill work and just take him on a trail ride afterwards to get his mind off of "riding, riding, riding" for once. 
 

After we did the hill work, I took him back to the arena and he was flying. It took him a minute to realize you don't need to use as much strength just doing a working trot on a flat surface as you do a lengthening trot up a hill. However, when I did ask for the lengthen trot, he sat and flew across the diagonal, sitting, sitting, sitting and lengthening through his back. For this reason, the arena workout was pretty short. I worked on getting Cody responsive to my transitions and telling him that *maybe* transition aren't getting worked up over. It seemed to work pretty well and we got a few super nice transition in there. 

 

I'm ecstatic that I got a really good ride in, it's felt like forever since I've had one like this. I come off of him everyday saying that he is something special, to go from no-muscle to body-builder in only seven months. I'm lucky to be working with such talent, we are a team. Every step of this journey will be worth it, with Cody by my side, anything will be possible. Bring on this show season!