Jumpin' Jolly Roger: A Dressage Kind of Day

I have been talking to alot of my horsey friends lately and the same thing is being said. If you wanna do good in your xc and show jumping rounds, your dressage better be good. Now, I know this. But jumping is SO much more fun than dressage. Sorry, dressage fans. I like the thought of dressage, how it makes you and your horse balanced and collected and focused and much, much more...I want to do dressage, but the work and patience that is involved, it's tremendous. Anyone who knows me knows that my patience isn't my strong point. I have to constantly re-focus myself and move on. Not to mention Olly. He is well put together and would do great at dressage, if he would focus. Sounds like we are made for each other. Lately we have been jumping or hacking out on trails.
Today, I grabbed my dressage saddle and the french link loose ring and headed out. Olly saw me and ran straight to his stall (it has been three days since we have ridden). I snatched my dressage whip just in case and we were down the road. The wind was gusty today so things were popping up in the Pony Vision like crazy. First thing visible to the BigRedHorse...

See the little silver pie tins??

Our neighbor planted a good size garden and decided that pie tins would keep the birds out of the planted seeds, well it also keeps out BigRedHorses. You would have thought that those things were bull dozers aimed right at him. He never bolted, which is his usual choice of freak-out, but he did freeze and snort at them. I gave him a minute to get over it. When I asked him to walk by the garden he had to make sure he was looking at the tins until he was FOR SURE they weren't going to eat him. That meant side passing like a trail pro! Now why can't the lateral sids be that great when I need them to be?
In our "arena" we started out but walking on the bit nd building impulsion. Olly is either hyped and ready to go or calm and mopey. I was certain that he was going to be all TB on me after the pie tin incident. To my surprise he was very slow and needed the dressage whip to be carried instead of it just hanging out in my half-chaps. I SOOOO wanted to carry the whip in my right hand. BUT Olly has issues going to the right. I think he is left handed like me. When circling to the left he is bent and fluid and collected (for our level BN). Going to the right he is more off balance and choppy. It takes like 10-15 minutes just to get him settled. He eventually gets it, but the transition is horrible. So I carried the whip on the left to assist the right. The only problem: my ring finger is pretty much useless. As you know I fell at the clinic last Tuesday. Although it is better and I can get my rings on and off, it hurts like hell and any kind of *twinkle-twinkle* on the reins kills me. My first knuckle (near my nail bed) is still inflammed and looks like I have massive arthritis, which I porbably will after the whole thing is healed. Rationalization: Why would I stop riding for one finger? I mean, I rode while I was pregnant...like a finger will stop me.
I started the whole session going to the left, since that is the better direction. Shorten the stride on the short end of the "arena" and legthen the stride on the long end. After two tries he flowed beautifully. I felt like I was on an upper level horse. lol!!! He was even tempo-ed and he kept his collection for the most part. When I felt him slipping all I had to do was sit deep, squeeze and twinkle the inside rein (against all pain) and he brought himself back in. It is hard for him to hold his collection for very long. I think he could do it for a whole test, but we may have to practice a bit more. I constantly have to remind him where to be and that is ok. We reversed direction and tried it all to the right. Since we weren't doing many circles and were just going on the large, he was able to make the bends in the corners of that "arena" just fine. Then came the circles. Circles are suppose to help with the collection and bend, and to the left it did. To the right....awkward, unbalanced and tossing his head. Now we aren't doing like any volte 6 and 10 meter circles....we are doing like 20 and 30 meter circles. The first thing that went through my mind was maybe he is off to the right because he has a foot or leg issue...but after a few minutes of re-focusing he fell in and did so much better. It still wasn't as great as to the left, but it was do-able. We focused on speed and tempo, impulsion and bend. In the end I thought he did great. We even did some canter-trot transitions. He is better at trot-canter than he is canter-trot. Out of all the days NOT to take my camera!!! He cantered so perfectly and was in control. One more reason to chalk up to my riding. Funny how if you fix alot of the rider's problems the horse becomes "fixed" too. I feel guilty that for the past year I have been making my horse not improve like he should.
I let him walk on a loose rein all the way home...even past the pie tins, which was a brave move on my part. He did keep his eye on them but never spooked. As we round the corner to the drive I look up and see this...