Today I worked on exercising my horse by long trotting and loping. We then practiced slowly on the pattern at first and worked out up to slightly pushing him through the pattern. While working slowly on the pattern I practiced pushing him out and away from the barrels so he doesn't shoulder into the barrel and plow it over. I did this at the trot two or three times and then practiced asking him to stop when his shoulder reached each barrel to gain rate. After going through the pattern working on little things like that a few times, I asked him to lope through it. Before quitting for the day we went through the pattern one more time and I asked him to give me a little more speed. He did great adding more speed to his run so I decided to stop there and end on a good note.