Windy Wonders

Apologies in advance for lack of self riteous mirror selfies to accompany this post. However it is not going to be completely devoid of media as i actually remembered to snap poor attempts at conformation photos on my own.
As the title suggests today was a massively windy day in the Burg. Forecast said winds of up to 100km/h - hardly a recipe for a good lesson with Kika.

Someone's beautiful dapples are coming through.
She is still standing too under herself for a proper
conformation snapshot; but she was standing still
& I had to snap it quickly as i had no one to hold her.
31/3/15

I started with Nancy, I spent a lot longer hand walking her than I normally would as she got herself a little worked up after the other horse in the arena left her ALL alone. We worked mostly on w/t transitions & changes of rein/bend with some of our new shoulder in thrown in on the right rein. She was good as gold and settled my mind to ride Kika in the lesson as the arena we were in was by far the least noisy - hallelujah.
Before I end with my Nancy tales though I have to share a funny anecdote from yesterday after our lesson. I hopped down and got the pooper-scooper to clean up after N. She typically walks alongside me/slightly off to the side behind me as i scoop the poop. Yesterday out of the corner of my eye i see her dolphin buck for no reason. I asked what was she doing and she stopped and looked at me with  her huge innocent butter-wouldn't-melt chocolate brown eyes. Horses eh?!
I feel I should add a PSA - don't try this at home kids.
But seeing as i haven't the foggiest what she was doing I'm not sure I'm best positioned to be preaching *shrug*

Taken post-spin yesterday; again apologies for lack of straightness
 but i didn't have another set of hands so i had to make do.
30/3/15

Kika was up next for some special lesson time attention. Again I spent a good bit of time hand-walking her as i was ready too early before my lesson start time. She was very good, even when the bit of wind noise that could be heard in that arena manifested itself she barely moved an ear. That reassured me no end that her brain was in situ & all should go well for the lesson.
Thankfully it did ☺

- Unsurprisingly we have many of the same issues as i have on Nancy. Namely her preference to not bend toward the inside or ride our corners while keeping a wary eye to the outside aka wonderfully contorted.

- I need to really focus on keeping my inside leg long and use it to stop her falling in on her bend/corners. - I need to carry my inside hand higher and again maintain more consistent contact with my outside hand; my fingers sneak open and i throw away the contact in a backwards brained reward system...some re-wiring required upstairs between the ears pour moi!

- Our first canter (like all of late) was a total cluster of mess with flailing, hollowing & lead switching in her hissy fit. It was beyond salvageable at that stage so we calmly came back to trot and asked again...much better from there. I have to really watch her bend that she doesn't sneak a peak to the outside and make things super hard on herself.

- When she does hollow and flail i have to lower and widen my hands to funnel her pea-brain in the direction we want.
*as an aside I'm thinking she's overdue an osteo visit & saddle check as she has been rather unenthusiastic about being saddled and groomed. At first I thought the brush might be too hard on her sensitive new spring hair (Diva) - but now methinks getting those things checked won't go astray to keep princess happy & front feet on the ground.

Utterly unrelated but how epic is this owl painting
 I wants it! 

That's all I can remember as i type this on the bus on my way to dinner - apologies for the thrown together post. Hopefully I can look back on it next week and take some tips from it. Two more lessons tomorrow and then the vet is coming for vaccines and i want her to check them both for worms and Nancy tends to have a bit of a coughing fit when we start trot work - nothing serious but seeing as vet will be there can't hurt to get it checked out.