Clinic at Freedom Run

Duke and I rode with two girls in the prelim level clinic with John at Freedom Run (which is next to Reber Ranch and has a racetrack!).
Duke was pretty good, especially considering he had all of last week off, was in his stall all week this week, and didn't get ridden two days.  He was a little strong and excited, but he did his best to get over every fence.  We were definitely not the best of the three, but I was just happy that we didn't totally embarrass ourselves (that I know of).
We started by trotting and cantering both directions.  My main instruction in the trot was to bend him more to the inside and to get him more round.  On the right lead canter, we had kind of a funky turn around a fence, and John said to use the outside rein to balance him.
From there, we trotted a cross rail, then a vertical, then cantered it.  Well, it was actually a gate.  I jumped it once while John was fixing it.  :(
This one was pretty easy, Duke didn't think much of it, he just sometimes landed a little strong on the far side, and I had to use the outside rein to push him around the corner because the ground was so sloppy.
From there we started a course - an oxer off the left lead, to a four stride line, then a triple (2 strides, 3 strides).  On this one, I knocked a couple rails, and John said what we needed was to do the half halt earlier - after I landed - not just before the fence.  And the first time through I didn't have enough go to the oxer, but he wanted the other girls to see the difference between that first fence outside after you've been schooling inside all winter.
We did that one again, then added a triple (2 stride, 1 stride) along the outside fence.  Duke was ho-hum.
Then John had us do left lead over the roll top, then angle/angle an oxer to a vertical.  Duke handled it great, but I had a hard time trusting the first angle.  The second time through, Duke drifted left and I hit the standards with my foot, we were so close.  But Duke was like "just be confident in me and I'll get us through this".
The last one we did was the oxer to the Liverpool, then angle/angle two verticals, then back through the original triple (2 strides, 3 strides).  Duke was a sweetheart.
John said that I let him lose power after the second angle, and didn't put my leg on because he had kind of pushed through the angle/angle, and then he was on the wrong lead so I didn't feel it.  He said if I had put my leg on earlier, I would have felt the lead and then had more time to switch it.
I'm super proud of Duke.  I thought he did a great job, and I loved being in a clinic with riders I didn't know and getting to watch them ride the same lines and hear what John had to say to them.  They both had really nice form.