A nice calm hack.

Yippee Benny and I went on a nice calm hack today. A friend came an collected us and escorted us home again. I played online first and he was quite lively – leaving a couple of times. After the last leaving I just left him standing in the arena whilst I went and did some tidying up and put on my hat and back protector (for peace of mind). He didn’t move just watched me, when I went back into the arena he came back to me. Was good for saddling and then walked round and did some more circles online. I hopped on and walked calmly round the arena, lateral flexion and backup was fine. Then trotted from a breath and slowed and sped up using seat bones. Not quite 10 minutes each rein but enough to warm up and get Benny relaxed. After this we did some patterns – 10 metre circles in each corner then across the arena to B or E (depending which way we went) then another circle and back across the arena to the opposite corner.
Then some serpentines and weaves, followed by some lateral work.

My friend then arrived for our outing, another nervous lady came along too, the horses got on well and settled to some good quiet hacking, a little trotting to get round some of the sharper bends. Benny is perfect in traffic and tucked himself in the side when asked. We rode down a path between 2 fields of horses who came to say hello, Benny was fine apart from wanting to go and sniff at them.There was one slight spook as he got a little left behind and was gathering speed to catch up when a dog barked at him – so he cantered down the road until he caught up with his friend. I was a little bouncy in the saddle as he took off but by the time he got to Champ I had managed to get myself sitting again. Then we had an uneventful ride home. Very pleased with Benny.