Yay!

It is SOOO hard to get a good longeing pic of him, haha!

I don't know in how many more ways I can count the ways of how much I love my horse.  Yesterday I took him up with the longe line on, and was QUITE happy to see he was sound, sound, sound.  Not that I had any doubts, but the last time I hooked up the longe line he was practically 3 legged lame.  I clucked and popped the whip, and managed to get him to throw a few half hearted bucks.  He showed me his usual cross canter.  Grrr, it is so obnoxious that he will not canter CORRECTLY on the longe line.  He cross canters both ways.

Today, it was riding day.  I picked well!  Monday was absolutely miserable; low 30's and wind gusts to 25 mph.  Yesterday mid 30's and wind gusts around 10 mph.  Today, sunny and high 40's!  I shed a few layers of clothes, zipped on the half chaps, and swung a leg over my boy.  He was 148% perfect.  Not a head shake, not a kick out, not even a crow hop.  No cross canters under saddle, no short choppy trot ... what a rock star!  I left off the spurs because I figured I would NOT need them ... let's just say I was kicking:)  Didn't do a whole lot; walk for about 7 minutes on loose rein, canter both directions about 4 times around ring on loose rein, go back to walk and put him on contact.  He was his usual self, NOT wanting to come up and round at the walk.  Picked up the trot, and he was lovely on the contact, just a little slow.  I had to nag him a little bit, but he finally picked it up and carried me a little bit.  I had 2 cavs on the lowest setting set at 9'.  Began trotting him through; he and I can NOT trot through cavalettis.  We are pathetic!  It was embarassing, actually.  Cantered left, cantered well through the bounce, reversed with a flying change; it was clean in the front, and I skipped the back.  I was happy because he didn't get fast and worried about it.  He DID get a little heavy tracking right, so I circled him through the bounce about 8 times until he backed himself off.  Finished with a couple of trot/canter/trot transitions and quit when he stayed steady in the contact throughout.

Love him, love him, love him.  I will ride him tomorrow in the cc saddle and the copper ball full cheek and plain cavesson again (did that today as well).  Fun times!