Lease ride Feb. 5th 2026 Training Journal Entry #25

We mostly worked on flat work, because of how muddy the rings were, but we were able to add in a couple of poles at the end.

During warm up, Sindri felt super nice and soft right from the start. He stretched longer through his neck and topline instead of starting higher headed or bracing, which is something he’s been improving with, but this was one of the first rides where he really offered it immediately. He felt really relaxed in the trot and willing to take contact while still staying forward and steady, which made it easier to focus on keeping him supple and consistent.

We worked a lot on circles, figure 8s, and bending work. I also added leg yields from the quarter line back to the rail, along with lots of direction and bend changes. He did really well moving off my leg for the yields and stayed pretty straight and forward while doing it. On the figure 8s, he did a nice job changing bend and direction without losing rhythm or contact, which felt like a improvement from when I first started working with him, he would be a bit off balance in our change of bend and direction. He felt very responsive to my aids and felt like he was waiting for me to make a decision.

Before we finished riding we went over a couple of poles where it wasn't too muddy, he stayed pretty soft coming in to the pole and steady coming out. When we did the outside line he was good going in but after we went over the first one he would see the second one and he would get a bit faster, and his head would come up a bit, we did the line again but i added a circle in between the poles and a halt at the end, he still lost a bit of softness after the first pole but it help to direct his energy and focus.

We ended on that, and walked down the path to cool down, the track was a bit muddy so i thought the grass would be a bit better.