We Cantered! On Purpose!

I finally had the first official canter on Cisco!

After lunging him in the scary end, which went well, I hopped on. He was walking nicely forward, and walked even more forward when another horse came into the arena. But only at a walk. Having a buddy in the ring with him chilled him out when we picked up a trot. Forward (or lack of it) was a bit of an issue at that gait.

Or at least until he spooked (at something behind him in the scary end of course) and he scooted forward at a canter, on his left lead. It was in control, his head was up, I wasn't too out of balance, so I rode it forward like it was no big deal. I'm pretty sure his left lead is going to be the tougher lead, so I figured I would go with it.

Who was a superstar? This guy!!

That scoot used up all his energy and he went back to chill, poky pony again. Bear in mind that this was only about the fourth ride since he had almost 3 months off, so I'm not really complaining about quiet. And for once it was actually almost warm out (by warm I mean above the freezing mark. Just above.) so maybe that contributed to less oomph than normal.

I wasn't really planning on asking for a canter today. But since he had cantered earlier in the spook with no stupidity, and there was another horse in the arena to babysit him, and he was pretty chill, I thought, what the hell. With the lack of forward I wasn't sure I would get it, but let's see what happens.

First attempt along the short side - kissed, nudged, rushed him forward - he kind of went WTF? and stuck his head up and trotted faster. Not crazy fast of course - that would take too much energy.

So we regrouped, came around to the same short side, and I kissed, nudged and rushed him forward - and I could feel that it was coming - don't give up - and we're cantering!!

The first canter was only a few strides before he fell out of it. Lots of scratches and good boy's.

And lots of carrots to go with the scritches.

Since that didn't go terribly, I needed to try again. Same thing - on the short side, kiss, nudge, rush -  he picked it up much earlier than the previous time. I encouraged him to canter a wee bit longer before coming back to trot. Lots of scratches.

That was it! And it was no big deal.

How did it feel? Pretty comfy. Pretty balanced. His head was up - not in a terrible, giraffe way, but in an I don't really understand way.

And then I did this to him. Hopefully he doesn't buck me off on our next ride!

No media unfortunately - Pony Grandma was pretty far away from my phone and I hadn't planned this so didn't think ahead. The good news is that I found our video camera, and Pony Grandma is great at recording video of my riding, so hopefully I remember to charge it for my next ride and I can see how it looks.