It's been a good month. We started May off with a dressage competition and did very well. We took home a nice, red 1st place ribbon, although that almost doesn't count because the other  competitors in my class never showed, but what does count is our score, which is the highest he's ever got, and if we'd got that score at two previous competitions would have won then, and would have had at least 2nd or 3rd place in the others, so that counts for a lot. Even more important were the judge's comments, which indicate none of our previous problems, so all the ways he lost marks before have improved noticeably.
He did find a new way to lose marks in the free walk, not by lifting his head and looking around as usual, but instead by stopping halfway across for a scratch. So he kept his head down, but... oh, well.

Now that the ground has dried out considerably, we went up the road to my friend Jan's class. He hasn't been out on the road in over a year, but didn't flinch at all, except for a bag of garbage waiting by the roadside. Well, I keep noting what a vast improvement he's made. Jan hadn't seen him in a long time and told me she was quite impressed with how nicely he's come along. He didn't refuse any of the jumps, although he did dance around before the flower boxes! OK, they were small, but it's not size: he baulks at things unfamiliar, so going over the small x-rails and going over the flowers and the barrels in a place he hasn't been in a long while was the goal and we succeeded.

Then a few days later, we got into the trailer with only minimal fuss and went to visit another riding place. This time, I rode another horse while my friend Jessica, who is a much better rider than I am, worked with Oakley. She's been riding him on the weekends while I am at work for the past while now. She had him going over 1m jumps very nicely. Again, he's in a brand new, strange place and isn't freaking unmanageably. It was glorious to watch, while I tried unsuccessfully to work with the other horse.

Then, a few days later, we got into the trailer again, and went to a cross-country training facility, where they have a wide variety of jumps at all levels. We've been there before, once, late last year, but then we just longed him over and this was the first time I rode him over the jumps. He baulked, as expected, but with nowhere near as much resistance as he used to give. We approached each jump at a walk and let him munch on the grass nearby. However nervous he was about the jump, he was still not too scared to eat. (He never is.) When we approached to go over, as usual, he tried to find a way out, then stopped and inspected it carefully, until I could feel he decided he could leap it. This time, though, at that moment, I backed him away and started the approach towards the obstacle again, so we jumped rather than leaped over. Of course, it was choppy, at first, but after a few tries, he was actually just stepping over about as lazily as he could. We went back and forth over small poles, and up and down a bank. I just paid close attention just to being in good position for the jumps, looking ahead, legs on, in balance, &c., letting him do the jump and Oakley is beginning to work from that.
At the end, we went over 5 jumps, turned around and did them all the other way, thus making a short 10-jump course. That's the first time we've gone over a cross-country course! It was absolutely thrilling.

The second time we went, we did different jumps, and the main resistance was about ditches. Again, the first time was a terrible panic, but by the third or forth try, he was just stepping over with an extra-long step. He did a jump into and out of water with aplomb and did another short course of 6 successive jumps. We're getting there. The third time we went, I had another friend, Olivia (also a much better rider than I am), ride him, because we've decided its probably better to have someone very experienced riding him when we go to another eventing horse trial. I'd like to get him going in competition, after all, but a green rider on a green horse is just a waste of entry fees. She got him over the fences the first time. Even though they were the same ones we'd done before, Oakley has a tendency to act as if he's never done anything like this, ever. So that was a great day, too.

The end of the month, we were supposed to go to a training show, but I wrenched my back and no one else could ride him, so we'll have to save that for the near future.
Good enough for one month!