It hasn’t been all self-reflection and teaching-awesome-people-who-kick-butt here in scenic Marshall, Virginia. My three yahoos have been holding their own.

Fender, now the Grand High Master of Flying Changes, continues to make great strides in operating his front end and hind end with proficiency AND simultaneously. Fender is pretty classic Sandro Hit—beautiful, flowing and inclined to be slow behind and tight in the back. So priority numero uno has been quick behind.

He’s getting it. And the half-passes, particularly at canter but also at trot, work miracles for that lift in the back he finds so hard, though I worry that I’m making the half-passes worse. Mostly I’m doing a lot of boring strength development work, which is vitally important and incredibly dull to write about.

I’ve applied to ride in the Young Horse Dressage Trainers’ Symposium up at the Hasslers in November; it’d be great to get in for a lot of reasons, but mostly I’d just like a lesson that I won’t otherwise have time to get on him.

Ella is also doing lots of boring work. Michael’s helped me find a totally different connection from hind legs to bridle, and her back is the loosest it’s ever been. As a result, she’s suddenly a lot less strong than she was six months ago, because she’s using the muscles she’s supposed to be using. The piaffe and passage are incredible… for about five seconds. Then she poops out. So it’s back to the drawing board and lots of slow, sloppy trot with big swing, and little, quick, up-and-down passage to take her power out of the equation until her back can hold her up better. Balance before power, always.

Midge is learning that lesson, too. After some down time this summer to recover from a little injury, he’s back to full work and doing brilliantly in everything except the canter half-pass zigzag and the ones. Midge’s canter is not gifted by nature, and he’s so powerful behind that, when really collected, it’s easy for him to have too much thrust and get strong in my hand and on his front legs. That makes the little dexterous work of the zigzag and ones quite impossible. So, like Ella’s doing lots of crappy little trot, Midge is doing lots of crappy little canter. And in just two weeks, what a tremendous difference: I got five GORGEOUS ones yesterday like it was no big thang. Neat.

I went out to visit Cleo in her “retirement home” this weekend. She looks great, and is SO happy! Cleo lives with my aunt and her two semi-retired older geldings, on whom Cleo has a terrible crush, which is hilarious.

And I see Billy, now 19, every week, but I’m always struck by how gorgeous he is. His leasee (leasor? whatever. the lady who leases him.) is out of town this week, so I got to ride him, and it’s just amazing how much he feels like he did at age 11. Billy’s canter, its collectability and throughness, is the standard to which all canters are held to this day for me. He’s incredible.

And the babies continue to do what babies do: grow, eat, be adorable and terrorize their handlers. Jenny, who is keeping Farrah for me, sent me an absolutely hysterical email about how Miss Thang demonstrates her athleticism by leaping the stream every time they go out on the trails. (Jenny teaches all the babies how to pony—how cool is that?!) And from the video below, I’ve already determined that LB has embraced his Thoroughbred ancestry and wants to be a racehorse… is it possible that I bred two event horses?