Good stuff going on

It's been a good couple of days, we are getting decent weather, especially compared to other places where winter seems reluctant to loosen its icy grip.

On Sunday the guys installed the gate, (with a little quality control inspection by Mesa) now the cross fence is complete and the grass will get a chance to grow.
Monday, I rode Gussie.
I started off in the round pen; free longed her because I wanted to see if she would pick up her right lead behind. She cross fired one stride, then hopped both hinds and then picked up the correct lead -no problems going left. I worked her a couple times at this until she picked up the right lead right off the bat. I think her body was adjusting to not being out of whack. When I rode her before she would have trouble going right, would put her head to the left a bit and drop her right shoulder, but now I can get her upright and following her nose to the right. I think I need to retrain her muscle memory. After that I rode her through the swamp which only has 6 inches of water in places, and she went through it no problem. Then up top and worked circles and getting her soft in the bridle using lots of leg. Also walked her across the little step- definitely have to modify it because it tipped a bit as she stepped off.

I was having a bit of trouble with saddle fit so I switched to the 1" thick 5 Star pad. It did help to keep the saddle in place a bit better, but I hope that once she gets her topline built up again the hollow behind her shoulder blades/wither will fill in more and help lift that saddle, otherwise I will be looking for a new saddle for her. This one doesn't have much clearance in the hand hold, even with the thicker pad, it is just touching the leather of the saddle.

The Wade saddle is even wider and sits lower and slides further back.
Anybody wanna buy a Wade saddle?

I rode again today, and managed to just beat the rain. I worked again on circles and getting her to hold the correct body position in the circles, again easy to the left and harder for her to the right. Also worked on haunches over, and shoulders over in a sequence; a half circle with hip over (turn on the forehand), switch to a half circle with shoulders over (turn on the haunches) and we will try to progress to one step over each way as she gets more comfortable with picking up and crossing over with her hind feet. I don't think she has been able to do that for a while properly so she is going to have to relearn all this stuff.
Then it was time for a li'l trail ride just to get her extending and using herself in a relaxed manner.

After that I found a good spot to trot big circles and work some more on holding frame going to the right. I did work her to the left to start with, then switched to the right and trotted lots of circles both ways.
I love how it feels riding this horse as compared to riding Rosalee. She is much more my style, willing to go wherever I ask, but not without her quirks as well.

Here is the update on her condition:

Here is another interesting thing: a month ago, she had a turkey neck:

and here is what it looks like today:

You can see right where the rein is laying along her neck that she is building muscle and filling in that geeky neck. And that is exactly what Tribute Essential K is supposed to do.
All in all, we are making progress!

Riding day 20 and 21