Dear Friends,

With my summer break (from travel) ahead of me, I’m eager to get more time in the saddle! My youngster, Pepperoni, is doing well given the sporadic ride time I’ve had in the past few months. Turns out, twice a week of riding is not adequate for him (it rarely is for a 3-year-old), but when I am on the road, sometimes it’s all I can manage. When that happens, usually the first day is spent taming the wild beast, then the second day we can actually get some work done.

Now that I will be able to get on him 5-6 days a week, the tone of our rides will change a lot, and the wild beast will hibernate. I always start my training sessions with ten minutes of long trot, to warm the horses up and get them in a working frame of mind. Pepper is at the stage where our main training focus is on canter work—departures, rating speed, circles, simple lead changes—and we’re just starting to think about collection at the canter.

We are riding out of the arena a lot more—either down the road or around our “virtual trail course.” Pepper is still occasionally prone to “exuberance,” shall we say, and every now and then his red-headed temper flares, but most of the time his head is in the game. It’s a challenge with a young green horse to ask enough of them to advance their training, but not so much that they become frustrated and hate being ridden.

Before the summer gets away from me, I need to set some new goals for Pepper and me. Otherwise, how will I know when I get there?