I just realized that I completely forgot my lesson report this week. Bad Linda. Though, I did have a pile of subtitling and course work. But still. In any case, it’ll have to be a briefer one or I will end up putting it off again.
I was on Sammy this week too and we continued to work on cantering, though first she had us emphasize obedience during (in particular) transitions as we warmed up. For me, this was particularly useful, since one of the difficulties with Sammy is getting him to not trot like a harness racing horse after cantering. He still did this a few times, but after he realized that that kept resulting in a gentle but firm halt, he started improving. He’s a very clever fellow, and if you set strict limits, he gets the point pretty quickly.
I also focused a lot on actually riding his canter from the get-go, and the results were overall pretty good. The really hard part about Sammy, though, is that he’s very good at giving you a nice, easy trot or a nice, easy canter that feels very comfortable. He’s learned a thing or two about escaping work during all his years at the riding school, and its easy to be fooled into not actually asking him to work properly.