Equitation Horse?

I had THE BEST ride on Dodger today. I hacked to a really old playlist, so obviously good music= great ride.

But last night I was looking at how awful our first horse show was and it inspired me to do some collection work at the canter. And if any of y'all have ever ridden a slug, that's the best comparison I can possibly make to give y'all an idea of what it's like to ride Dodger. He's SOO lazy. If you shift your weight a little towards a downward transition he's going to halt, and god forbid you touch his mouth without having a spur in his side or he's going to halt. So I hope that you can imagine out difficult collection work at the canter might be.

But aside from the fact that my thighs and calves got an extreme workout today, he was FABULOUS. He caught on really quick to the idea (he was a tad rusty at first) and he worked for 15 minutes or so in the canter doing collected lateral work.

He was SOOOO FREAKING HANDY by the end of the ride. I was ready to go jump around a derby course or ride a equitation course or something. He felt amazing. Even his downward canter-to-trot-to-halt transition at the end was far more fluid and less "OH MY GOD SHE SAID I COULD STOP" *collapse*.

I was very, very proud of my boy today! Taking him to a show to hack around next weekend. Very excited to have him out and about again!

Happy Thursday y'all!
-3