This is the face of a horse who was so forward at the trot for the first time that I actually had to slow him down.
And a damned cute face it is. |
Wednesday's ride, which I kind of dragged myself out to, felt like a bit of a breakthrough.
When Stitch picked up the trot, heading away from the gate, he propelled himself forward down the long side. I had to take a slight feel of the reins to steady the trot a bit, while saying "easy" to him.
This continued through the ride, however most of the time "easy" was followed by "yasssss". It finally felt like he got it. This was the first ride that I thought I might even be able to ask for a canter, but I'm not ready for it yet. I want our steering to be a bit better first.
This is the body of the horse who looked level on Wednesday (my mom and I both were saying so), but by Saturday looked bum hight again. |
Stitch moves nicely off my outside leg to steer, but hasn't figured out moving away and bending from my inside leg. Now that we don't have to focus so much on getting forward at the trot, we will start to add a bunch of steering, which will hopefully help him get the idea about the inside leg.
Here's hoping that the breakthrough sticks!