That Feeling of a Great Ride

You know that feeling you get when you've had a great ride? The one that no matter how crappy your day was or is you have a perma-grin on your face?

I had that feeling after my ride on Thursday.

I definitely didn't have a good feeling before my ride when I had to deal with mud up to his knees.

Cisco started off pretty relaxed and I hoped it would continue through the ride. I got kind of lucky in that just as the other horse in the arena was leaving and Cisco was starting to worry that he would be abandoned another horse came in. He's always more relaxed when he has an arena buddy.

Mostly better - the mud around the coronet band was still wet though.

It was a ride where he just tried really hard to stay relaxed and do whatever I asked of him. At a trot he tried to keep his neck long and I tried to let him. He moved away from my inside leg to keep the circles round, and when I remembered to ride the outside of the horse at the same time as the inside he got really steady and felt solid on the circle. His canter transitions were prompt from a light aid. And when I asked him to drop his head from the giraffe carriage at a canter that I've been getting since I changed his bit, he finally gave me an honest attempt.

Post-ride stare at the new spotted horse along the driveway.

There were a few spooks - a dog suddenly barked, something in the scary corner moved, and one dead person sighting. But every time he came right back to me and settled back into his work. A couple of years ago he wouldn't have been able to let these things go and the rest of my ride would have been super tense.

I was really happy with this ride. It wasn't perfect. But I really felt that Cisco was with me for the whole ride. His attention is so often focused on something somewhere else in the arena, but for this ride he was focused on me.

There's always a derp photo though!

Too bad that I rode in the evening and most of my day was over. I would have liked to enjoy my horse created elation a little bit longer!