Peeking Around the Corner

Was that a corner? Did we just turn it? I think we may have!

Knock on wood, but I had a pretty great lesson tonight. I was going out to ride anyway and Mondays used to be my lesson nights so I asked KAT if she had room for me. She did, so I added another lesson to this week. I'm a little on the fence about asking KAT to do some training rides on him or not. I really want to do it myself so I wanted to give it some more time and see if we started to progress faster. Tonight may have just been turning that corner...maybe not, but maybe. He was SUPER good tonight. He was very challenged by having two of his pasture buddies, and the mare from across the aisle in the arena with him, AND a horse in the round pen across the driveway. I really had to keep on him about staying on task and not fixating on THEM instead of ME, but there was never a fight, I just had to keep on him, gently. His biggest issue was when he got behind one of the other horses he'd speed up to be next to them or if someone came up behind him he'd slow down. He stopped it after a while, though. Just takes consistency on my part, I guess. He was moving out nicely though and was pretty great with his frame. He's moving off my leg pressure nicely and the word "beautiful" came out of KAT's mouth directed at US! Yippee! She let us lope alone in a circle around her, which is very nice of her since I have some anxiety about loping him, but he was very VERY good. He didn't stumble once. He breaks gait a bit, but most of that is me being nervous and a little afraid he'll go too fast. He went in more of a broken egg shape than a circle at the left lead, but it was such an improvement over what it's been like sometimes.

I'm looking forward to my lesson tomorrow night to see how it goes.

When I was walking him back into the barn the next lesson (college kids) was waiting and the guy who had my Rip said "That's a cool lookin' horse!" I smiled and said "Thanks!" Does it make me snobbish if I LOVE it when people compliment my horse? I would've settled for a plain bay, so I didn't buy Jr. for his nifty bay roan paint-ness, but it's a nice bonus! It's like when I took a blue-eyed pinto pony, Debon to a Hunter/Jumper show. It was like taking a new baby to a family reunion. People just gazed at him longingly and said "Oh what a cute pony!" Even the judge fell madly in love with him. Here's a pic from that day, just for fun.