Two Good Days in a Row

I'm reading another book about training young horses right now (I'd say the name if I could remember it). The trouble with books like that is they never tell their readers just how much work is really involved. If you listen to the book, it seems like all you do is hop on and trot away. Half the book is about introduce jumping to a horse. I mean, I do plan to jump as soon as Izzy's ready, but right now we struggle with trotting a straight line and we haven't even started to canter. Plus, all the horses in books seem to be started at ideal times under ideal conditions and never really act up. Izzy, on the other hand, is 6. At least she was never mistreated, so I don't have to contend with mental issues, and she's super lazy, so she doesn't act up much.

She was really good today, though. I'm working on keeping her out on big circles. I noticed that I was using little circles as a crutch to keep her from going forward instead of just trusting her to be her cute, lazy self. She does ok and the straightaway, but then falls through her left shoulder. When she does that, I try to keep her neck soft by doing small changes of bend, tap her lightly on the shoulder with the whip just to remind her what I want her to move, and try to move her to my outside rein with my inside leg. I'm telling myself she's getting better.

She looked absolutely adorable in her ear net. I didn't get a picture of it, since we were trying to do slightly more formal shots, but I probably should get one next time. I was a little confused about putting it on, though. There's this long string that apparently goes under the throatlatch and then ties (?) on the other side of the neck. Or something. I need to do some research to see what it's supposed to do. Any ideas?