Starting To Get Serious!

Goblin's work has been anything but a routine recently, due to chiropractor visits and more recently the rain! He has responded really well to the chiro work and I have been dieing to get on him and see what he feels like, but due to a week of rain, it just hasn't been safe. So I have put him on the lunge at a walk over poles this week, too slippery for a trot, and he is really starting to step forward and stretch.
Thursday was the first day I got back on him. The grey clouds were putting pressure on us, but I thought we could squeeze a quick ride in! As most of the ground was still far to wet to do much on, I decided to take him over to the show grounds and ride around the sand trotting track. This would be our first time officially riding out of an enclosed arena :) Of course, he took it all in his stride and behaved like a gentleman. We did some bending and halting on the track just to keep him interested, before finding some puddles. He wasn't so keen on the idea at first, but we gradually got through a small amount of water..then it started to rain..! Doh! I had got so carried away with Goblin that I hadn't noticed the rain rolling in! We were already wet so we went though another puddle before walking back to the paddock. By the time we got there, the rain had finished..but the clouds were still hanging low.
Saturday the sun was out, and so were Goblin and I! Back to the show grounds trotting track. Today we started working on transitions. Walk to halt are really good, but he is a little slow to respond to trot to walk, but that will come. We did lots of serpentines and circles at walk and trot, and by the end he started to bend AND stretch down a bit in the trot! YAY! So on that note, we ended the hard work and went in search of the puddles. Didn't take us long to find them again. He took a bit of convincing to go in the first lot of water, but starting from squelshy ground to small puddles to walking through a large section of water, he was quite happy. And all this with out a lead horse! What a champion! So after the feet were well and truely wet, we headed back to the paddock for brekky :)
He now has a really active springy walk which is VERY exciting! I can't wait until he is stronger and balanced, if the same feeling in the walk is the same at trot and canter, I may never want to get off! What a nice start to the day!