OTTB Charm

So, as you may have gathered from the title, I did in fact make it to the Karen O'Connor clinic this past weekend (yes I'm very late on this post...we just won't talk about that). Spoiler alert, it was amazing . Epic water shot (I've always wanted one of these) Day one was SJ work. We were in the BN group, and Banner was wonderfully bored with everything we did. Karen honed in really quickly on what everyone needed to work on, and we were no exception. Her first, and biggest note for me was that I need to get the impulsion from Banner sooner, but be a better manager, because he can quickly go from impulsion to impulsive.  Banner and I only did each exercise once, which can easily feel like you got overlooked, but I know from watching Karen several other times, that if you only do it one time, that means you did it right. I felt like we got some good notes and work, and I honestly felt awfully proud & happy that she didn't feel the need to dril...

So at the end of my last post, I mentioned giving Banner a few  well deserved days off. I fully intended to give him like 4-5 days off and then launch into some work. LOL. He got nearly 2 weeks off. But we did stay semi-productive in that time - I bribed him into still liking my presence with many, many  cookies, he had a chiropractic adjustment by our vet (and wow did that make a difference!!), and he got his fall vaccines & teeth floated. Phew. I do actually ride sometimes though First: His chiropractor appointment. Banner has this strange tendency under saddle to hold his hindquarters to the right, and fairly significantly to the right at that! Apparently this has been common for him for a very long time, since I mentioned it to a trainer who hadn't ridden him since May of 2017 , and even she was like "oh yeah, he still does that annoying thing with his haunches?". Instantly, when I realized this was an ongoing issue with him (not just a me problem or an ou...