In this session Caroline and Sunny work on straightness, the beginnings of lateral work, and improving canter with Ali. They start by thinking about how much horse Caroline has underneath her on each side, and discover that there is more horse to the right. The very fact that there is not equal amounts of horse under her makes straightness and turning harder. Part of the solution, once there is equal horse, is thinking of turning like a bus which helps Caroline to keep Sunny straight.

They look at moving the hind legs, and Sunny isn’t hugely responsive so they talk about how to improve this. He finds moving the front legs much easier. They move on to leg yield in walk, in which Sunny would like to walk faster rather than go sideways, but when Caroline thinks of getting herself left (on the left rein) and gives a small stop aid Sunny understands what's required and goes left nicely. Sunny likes to go right on his own terms – generally rushing out through the right shoulder – so they look at how the aids trained through groundwork help to keep him straight when riding leg yield.

In canter left Caroline doesn’t manage to keep plugged in the same way as she does in walk and trot, but they discuss how to correct it, and Caroline manages to achieve the fixes, and suddenly finds turning on the circle in canter much easier and is able to organise Sunny from her body. She comments that she wouldn’t have been able to do that a couple of months ago. Canter right tends to have a longer stride, so thinking about little canter and sitting ‘down’ helps make the canter much easier.