Sweet Toby turns 8!

Toby turned 8 years old on May 15. I can't believe I have had him for half his life. We had a great lesson on Wednesday. We worked on settling him in the new arena across the street. He remembered that the barrel by the tree was scary last week because of moving shadows. So my coach put another barrel in the arena and he forgot to be scared! This gave him a new object to focus his attention on. He is very stiff and unbalanced in the canter on the right rein so we practiced that a lot. We must of done over 30 - 20 meter circles on the right reign. This allowed him to find his rhythm and balance. On the part of the circle going towards home he would speed up and on the part going away from home he would slow down. So I need to be proactive and half halt him on the fast part of the circle and squeeze on the slow part. This will help him achieve a steady rhythm and find his balance.