First, the Good

Yet again, the ponies had most of a week off between rides. I felt crappy all weekend and was living on Advil. I managed to get out to the barn on Sunday but it turned out to be just a quick groom and feed kind of visit.

I was off work about an hour and a half earlier than normal on Tuesday, so I managed to make dinner and eat it for once before heading out to the barn that night.

Cisco was a wee bit perky when I hopped on, and since the other riders were finishing up and untacking down in the scary end (which also had the big overhead door open) he was dragging me in that direction for a change. We had one good slo-mo spook as a butterfly flew past us and farted, but other than that, he was very happy to stay at that end of the arena.

I needed some time with my therapists on Wednesday.

He felt a bit better with right bend through the ride - or at least not dumping onto his right shoulder. It still has a long way to go though but it felt like a bit of progress.

The canter felt pretty good - right felt really good (his stronger side, well, mine too), the left was a really good try at a big circle and almost breaking back to trot a few times but he kept going.

Even better, he passed my test - we were able to do our first simple changes! The left to right had a much longer trot than I anticipated as we had to steer around a beginner, but he easily picked up the lead. The right to left I wasn't overly confident that we would get the lead, but he totally did! We didn't get our steering as he fell to the inside as he picked up the canter, but hey, baby steps!

Cisco is a high-efficiency mowing machine. Who doesn't have time to chew.

I was a bit worried about Phantom's breathing as last week she wasn't good, despite having a dose of Ventipulmin. So I made sure she had her medicine before riding - and she was great.

She got the easy ride as I got on at about 9:30pm and didn't have a ton of energy. We mostly worked on transitions, asking her to lower her ears before the transition (and usually afterwards too). She got a bit silly in the canter, but nothing crazy, and we were able to regroup and start over and get a better attempt.

Then I went home and shit got real.