Can't jump, don't ask me!

Tried the left and right thing with Max again this morning. H told me that sometimes horses digest lessons over night, so it's a good idea to give them time to think and try again. Well, I can get him to look in the "correct" direction, but he's not taking steps. We only had a few goes, and that was enough. We'll just keep building on it.

Having a bit of sciatica trouble today, so didn't ride, just did loose. We're still working on me being a little distance away from him for this, and he's getting better at it. He can canter down the long side of the school now and stay in the track before getting over-excited and turning in, then stopping in a heap. Another thing we'll just keep working on, but it's coming along just fine. Little steps.

Did the trot poles work again too, which was pretty successful, then tried some loose jumping, which would more accurately be described as "loose knocking stuff down".

Just a tiny little jump, but he was better at going through it than over it. Tried to trot over it, really, rather than seeing it as something he could pop over.

It was fun though, and we both enjoyed it. Just a different thing to engage and amuse him. Really light, plastic pole, too, so no danger of knocking himself with it.

I did collect him into the middle of the school at one point when he was getting anxious eyes, and told him that he couldn't do anything "wrong". There is no "wrong", there's just experimenting and playing. Don't know if it got through, but I think the calmness did. I don't want him to feel under any pressure to perform, and I do think he tries so hard to please, and gets anxious when he's not sure he's doing what I've asked. Bless him.