A bit of curve ball

Yesterday was another lovely day. Cynthia came out again to join me in riding. When I went to get Steele he gave me a bit of a look but came in easily enough. The weather was once again warm.  I  noticed in the cross ties he was napping. When I got on he was a bit sluggish.
"Don't you think it's too hot?"
"Nope, we'll be fine"
"but it seems that we should just enjoy the sun and, I don't know, have a nap"
"after"
"sigh"

After a bit of encouragement he picked up and we could work. I even introduced the concept of leg yield at a trot. It was a baby one but hey, we moved from the quarter line to the fence and he was not worried about it.

After I opened the gate from his back and we headed out to hack around the field. Once again he led Irish. It was funny, this time he noticed stuff that he walked by with no issues yesterday. One was the pile of rail ties- the sun and leaves were creating a dappled shade. But he went by with a bit of encouragement. The other was my trailer. We let Irish go first at this point.

Later Cynthia and I headed to the Petite Riviere Winery. After tasting we each bought a bottle of 'Rissers Breeze". If you can find it, I highly recommend it.

However, later that afternoon I began to feel ill. I went to bed and woke up with the flu. So that meant today I've been laying around feeling sorry for myself. But I have to get better because I have big plans for the weekend:

 On saturday Steele and I are heading to a local dressage show. We're not actually showing, we're just hanging out. I want him to experience a show environment without the stress of competing. I will play it by ear but I hope to ride in the warm up and take him into the ring during the ribbons. On monday the judge is giving a clinic and I signed us up for it. *gulp*.

In preparation I've been working on teaching Steele to load. I even brought Royce out to do a session. Here's a video clip.  In this he'd finished teaching him to load on one side and was getting him to load on the other. You can see Steele is confused by this.

"Okay, I'll get in. 
Wait, you're in my way.
 Um., just move a bit and I'll get right on. 
Hey buddy you're in my way. 
Oh, you want me to go in this side? Why didn't you say so? 

Wish us luck.