BB did stuff!

Last night's ride was lovely, and I was so happy with my baby pony. Yes, we rocked a running martingale with a dressage saddle, and yes, I did carry my dressage whip, but I had a prompt, thinking, functional pony for 97% of my ride yesterday. And I think that's a record.

Because clearly, the indoor is haunted. 

She was braced and unresponsive for only a small part of our canter work (left lead only) and leg yields, also to the left. I think part of it was memory from last time; some other boarder exited the arena and did a real shit job of closing the door I had carefully, lovingly set in it's track, which means that when the wind blew as we were going by it, it made a lovely crashing banging noise and blew in. Left lead stuff seems to be harder for her, so I guess we have a lot of left cantering and left leg yielding to do! She was, however, pretty darn straight in her leg yields, prompt in her canter transitions (though to the left she was struggling with lead - I am sure that's an attention issue, because it only happened in one spot) and we even got a few walk-canters. I'm focusing on the whole trot-canter blob of issues right now: mainly that she's slow off the leg coming up, needs to be more naturally forward / I shouldn't have to kick for every stride and then in her downwards, she either flings her head around and braces or tries to blobflop into a halt. Erhm, no. 

So I think my goals for the next few weeks will be: 

1. Productive dressage rides, with praise. I suck at praising her and she really flourished with all of the good girls she got last night. I'm going to continue to demand forward off the leg horse, and try to encourage her to be more supple and self carrying in the process. I think her issues are partially sassy mare, partially unbalanced baby and partially her realization that work is hard. 

2. Grids. We need to get back into jumping shape and I think that's the way to do it. She took rails in our last jump school, which means we need to get her picking up her knees and really rolling and tucking her hind end. 

I also need to continue to weigh options for blankets, as I really feel like Bailey needs... something. I'm not sure what. Probably another medium, and maybe retire the old WB heavy to emergency duty? 

If I have any readers, how many spare blankets do you keep around? How do you deal with blankets in general??!