Prancing!

Yesterday was my first time back in the saddle post-body-clipping. It was probably a whole 30f outside, so I thought it would be an excellent time to bust out the quarter sheet I snagged on ebay earlier this year. After all, I didn't want the giant heat-producing pony to get cold, right?

Magic butt rug ftw!

I probably need to quit doing this because it's going to come back and bite me eventually, but I assumed that a 17 year old OTTB with a long competitive career had worn a quarter sheet before and didn't really introduce it to him at all.

It's a super cool Bucas sheet that's fleece lined with a waterproof top and it's heavy enough that it won't flap. Perfect!

Cuna and I headed out to the arena. There were other lessons going on, so we worked in short sessions. We started out with the square exercise to build connection. I focused on holding my outside rein (thumb up, elbow bent) and turning Cuna around square corners from my inside leg.

He was lovely. Poll flexed, moving almost equally well off of both legs. Crazy.

At the next break, we picked up the trot. I focused on maintaining that leg-to-hand connection and the up transition was lovely. He was slow, cadenced, and almost floaty. He did try to duck behind my leg a little, but all I had to do was kick him on. Wow... Feeling good.

Then we rolled into canter. Instead of careening around at a near gallop, I had a little, almost mincing gait in a nice balance. His back felt humped, so I sat deep in the saddle and kicked on, and he was just great. I almost asked for a flying change, but since he and I tend to disagree on those, I left them for another day.

We came back to trot and did a little shoulder fore and leg yielding, complete with some lateral motion and no running forward or falling on my hands.

And I thought he wasn't a prancer

At that point, I called it a day. Cuna was literally prancing around the arena and being completely awesome. What more could I want?

I have no idea what the change was--either the connection we've been working on or him feeling good with a new hair cut, or even maybe just a weird side effect of the quarter sheet. Whatever it was, I'll take it!