He almost made it...

Yesterday, after more than three years I finally measured Crispin again.

Well, he almost made the 16.0hh mark. He is 162cm high (+/- 0.5cm).

Big Boy.

6 years old and a lesson clip

I can not believe how lazy I've become. Only one blog entry in 6 months. That's bad!

All is well. Dressage is progressing very slowly but very nicely. We addded a little bit of baby jumping, more trail rides and did a "Zirkuslektionen" clinic. And of course Crispin turned 6 years old.

The "Zirkuslektionen" were fun. I really need to take a video of the tricks we've learned.

The jumping also is fun, he is such a good boy about it. Unfortunately our first jumping lesson resulted in a badly strained ankle for me. Not Crispins fault at all. He overjumped big time (which was expected) but since I was in a dressage saddle (in which I have never jumped before) he not only jumped me out of the tack, my leg also slipped back and I think he got scared and took of bucking. Since I already was basically up on his neck at this point, I couldn't hold on and he trew me. It happens...

I also finally got s short clip from one of our dressage lessons with Jenny. We are still doing ridiculously boring "baby" stuff, but I do like the video a lot. He looks so happy and content with what we ask of him. I never took myself as someone who'd go classical dressage, but Jenny's approach (or Klaus Werzinger's approach to classical dressage, to be more precise) seems to be the perfect choice for Crispin.

Crispin Lesson with Jenny May 1st

Like I said, not much to see. The last year we've been working on his balance and straightening him out. The idea was to make him understand that streching out long and low (lifting his back in the process) is what we want from him. Just now we added two new ideas. I will now ask him into a higher frame with more contact (still baby contact) alternating with asking  him to go "all by himself", meaning that he's supposed to find his rhyhtm, ballance and stretch by himself without my interference.