Did Follow the Rail with Chey today, and played with "strong elbows, soft hands". I've never done much work with collection with Chey, but she did really well. She has a tendency to want to look out when she has connection, so we worked on that, and when I felt we had a good circle, we stopped to process. My old dressage instructor, Diane Royse, used to tell me "when they are rounded properly, the weight should be on your outside rein and you should be able to pet your horse with your inside hand". I put all that to use today, and she did really well for day 1. I don't want to mess with contact too much until I can afford the GOC DVDs because I don't want to start bad behaviors I'm not aware of, but I'm happy to see she understands it so far.
It was interesting to see when tracking to the right she picked up contact better at the trot (typical for most horses), but tracking left (her hard side no matter what the task) she picked up contact easier at the walk, and understood it better.
On a side note, you know it's time to expand your tack room when you add an extra bridle to the hook and it falls right out of the wall! =p
