I started with ground work, using the dressage whip to ask him gently to cross his hind legs and progressively moving the location of the aid from his hock up his leg and quarters to his flank and then his girth. Once he was quietly stepping over from a light pressure at the girth I used my body language to ask him to cross over his forelegs too until we were walking small circles at a sort of leg-yield/shoulder-in. Most importantly, he was calm and relaxed throughout and is becoming really trainable and offering lots of 'tries' in response to new or different pressures.
Then I climbed on board and he very happily crossed his hind legs at walk on the right rein but was less willing to do it on the left. This confirms what I've observed on the lunge; that he's just not as coordinated on that side and just isn't as strong. If he's ever going to go on the wrong lead or get disunited on the lunge it always happens on the left rein.
Once I'd given him some clearer feedback and a food reward or two for hind-leg crossing to the left he was much happier to do it. Then we tried it in trot and here we came upon our first real objection under saddle! It didn't last very long but it was a good demonstration of how a horse like this needs things really broken down for him to accept them calmly. We went back to walk and got him really confirmed and then just tried again on the easy side... success! He trotted slowly, crossing his hind and forelegs quite nicely and I quickly changed the rein and got it happening on the hard side before he had a chance to think or worry about it too much. We played with this exercise for quite a while and it was great for unlocking Fudge along his length so I found a great way to use his new-found looseness. I did the big broadside shoulder-in/leg-yield up the short sides, then pushed the trot right out across the long diagonals. Unusually, I drilled this over and over and he seemed to really appreciate the repetitions! Another interesting quirk about Fudge's personality, maybe?
It was lovely to feel how the lateral steps loosened him up and the steps got longer and freer without rushing. I haven't really achieved very much when I've tried to lengthen his trot steps before so it was a big improvement on earlier efforts. He also got a bit tight in the neck the first couple of times (I think in response to both legs going on and maybe anticipating canter?) so was fun when he started lengthening and stretching his neck as the steps lengthened too. I finished on a pretty flawless 'stretchy circle' from the Prelim and Novice tests
We also trotted over a cavaletti for the first 5-6 times, which was hard and scary for poor Fudge. He landed in canter after one of the attempts but it was rushed and really tense so I just used a voice aid to bring him back. When he can consistently canter in a relaxed way on the lunge I will start to ask for it under saddle. I really think he's very weak physically and that slowly-slowly is going to be a smart move with this guy.
I also remembered to take a photo!
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