I've been sick for the past 3 days. I came down with some fantastic body aches, a fever and the major sweats after my lesson on Tuesday. Ernie was pretty good, but it was nothing fantastic. Same slow start into the lesson, same initial resistance, same old same old. So I wasn't terribly excited to ride today, however...
HE WAS FANTASTIC! GORGEOUS! AMAZERFUL! I'm making up words, I'm so pumped about how today went. I only wish I had someone who could have taken pictures...there are never enough of those people around.
He doesn't like the far end of the arena; my guess is because the lighting is kinda sketchy so it seems darker, he's got some mild sight issues (at least that's my theory) in one eye, and lots of wind, snow and other horse-eating scaries seem to come from that end. Normally I avoid it like the plague because once I trek down there, his head goes up, his back drops, and he veers in every direction. I decided to try a new exercise today, however: face our fears! So he got lunged, and lunged, and lunged some more, at that end. Then I got on, walked around, did LOTS of leg yielding all over the place to get his brain, and started trot work, fingers crossed.
Holy ****! It was a totally different horse. I've been working with my dressage instructor to find better ways to keep his attention during my rides, because once he gets rattled, it can be hard to bring him back to a place where he feels confident. On the ground, he'll follow me anywhere, but under saddle, unless you can plug into his forever-worrying mind and tell him he's a fantastic, brave, majestic stud all the time, he can be pretty flighty. Not today! Today, he was moving on the bit, no resistance whatsoever. He was SO soft in the mouth the reins literally felt like puddy in my hands. Head low and stretched into the contact, back rounded, hocks flexing up underneath him. AWESOME! I know this sounds like nothing particularly fantastic, especially for a horse who has been trained up through 1st level, but with age and his ridiculous mentality, getting this horse back into work has been hard. I'm so. freakin'. pumped.
I'll try and take more pictures tomorrow. My digital camera is a bit of a dinosaur, but it does it's job most of the time.
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