Heels Down, Kick On

Yesterday was DAY 1 of PROJECT RELAX. Flora is naturally quite tense in the school, so since we are biting the bullet and trying to start improving our dressage, this needs sorting. After a warm up and a run through of our Prelim test at the weekend, which my friend Eli videoed, Flora’s resistance to contact reared its ugly head again, which ironically, is a perfect description of Image 1, below 🤔 . Even when she’s not obviously resisting, her jaw is clenched and she’s gener ally quite upright (Image 2). Interestingly, when we are warming up, she is happy to flop round long and low, but as soon as I shorten my reins, I tend to disappear down a hole in her back. 🤦‍♀️ She’s been checked over, had her teeth done, her bit professionally fitted and her tack changed, so it seems it’s down to a combination of my riding (makes sense) and the fact that she was trained to race, is now 14 and hasn’t done much in the way of schooling in the meantime - at least, not consistently. Sooo...