Here he is yesterday – I *think* that lump is actually a smidge smaller:

It probably wasn’t clear from the video the context of what we were doing then – we were really focussing on ‘forward’ and just ‘forward’ when asked and not worrying too much about what it looked like as he can be very backward and behind the leg. The reason I was quite pleased with the footage is that he was moving really well and off the leg reasonably well but that did mean his transitions looked a bit more panicked than usual – although the head throwing is a Thing.

I do a *lot* of walk to canter. We didn’t start cantering under saddle at all until he could pop it from walk but there’s certainly more work to do as he’s only been cantering under saddle for a few months so I’ve read your comments with interest Sue! :db:

From my point of view M having a more experienced loan horse around that knows how to canter that I can sit on and get my riding a bit better will be very nice and looks like it might happen! 🙂

Jumping is probably his favourite thing Beth! It doesn’t look anything like as bad as it felt and I’m glad that might instinct when I get his stride wrong is to throw the reins at him a bit and not catch him in the mouth. I need to do some proper work on the jumping, probably with my instructor calling strides for me for a bit until I get my eye in, or cantering over poles so I can get a feel for what 3 strides looks like! 🙂