Just a Glimmer

When I went out to Cisco's paddock on Tuesday evening, I spotted a white horse in there that I didn't recognize. Who was the new white horse?

It was mine. This was the first time that I really realized how white Cisco is getting. He is more white/gray than gray/gray these days. Well, a flea-bitten white/gray. Which you can't see from a distance. I'll miss those dapples.

He doesn't look so white late in the evening.

Thankfully, the reason I thought he was a different horse, was because he was super clean after all the rain we've had, and the sun was shining off his back. Getting him groomed and tacked up didn't take too long.

We rode at the same time that his girlfriend, Bug, was being ridden. I keep hoping that when he's being ridden with one of his (many) girls that he'll turn into a fancy prancing horse while trying to impress them. It never happens. He turns into a needy, distracted, attached boyfriend.

Really, he just gets quicker when we're heading their way, and bulgey through turns away from them. Annoying, but nothing major.

For the first part of the ride he was a bit more forward than required, but not overly considering he hasn't been ridden since last Tuesday. We just did lots of turning and bending. I also added in some leg yields at a trot, and had a couple really good attempts off the harder left leg.

We did a short canter each way - the arena still has the wet spots, and the jumps are all set up to avoid those spots, which means the only open areas are the wet spots that I don't really want to canter through.

Who's a good boy? I am! (That's Bug in the background.)

And then I checked my watch. I'd been on for a whole 25 minutes. Okay, I needed to fill another 20 or so minutes. I thought I would do some more trot and really work on his frame and mix in some canter.

We didn't get back to the canter. Because he was frickin' awesome at the trot!

Things were finally clicking! And I could make it happen!

We did about 5 minutes at the trot. For most of it, he was stretching forward and down. And we even got the correct bend at times! When he popped his head up a bit, I asked for some inside flexion, and he gave it to me and I softened forward and he followed the bit.

I ended the ride there. I've been feeling that we are really close to getting this, so I was really happy that it was finally happening. Will we be able to get it two rides in a row?? Fingers crossed!