ERMEGERD RIDING

As I've complained about at length, it's been frozen hard here, then there was the melting/snowing/flooding problem.

Then we had epic winds for about 12 hours.

So beautiful

And then?

The arena dried up and my BO was able to work it for the first time this year. It was lovely.

Ears and sun and 50f!!

The little dude had taken advantage of the weather and galloped himself into a lather in the field, so I figured we didn't need a lunge or anything. Plus he is a rockstar.

I hopped on and off we went.

We did some walk/halt/walk stuff to get him listening to my leg. I tried to focus on keeping my heels down and thumbs up. Maybe someday, right?

I asked him to step up to the trot and was completely blown away. Instead of giraffing and tensing up his underline, the little man kept his body relaxed and stepped right up into the tot.

Looking oh so balanced

Hot damn.

I love this horse.

Then I just rode around the arena announcing to everyone that they had to look at how cute he was. I couldn't even believe it. Last year, we struggled a lot with him feeling behind my leg even when my eyes on the ground would tell me he was going forward.

This year?

he's my badass ottb jumper

Yeah. That 12 weeks off was good to him. Whatever lingering body soreness he had to work though must be gone, because he felt AMAZING. Forward, fluid, responsive. LOVE.

We kept is short, but he gave me some really quality work at the trot and canter. He was stretching down, stepping underneath himself, and trying hard to remember how to move off my leg.

We actually trotted a lot, but I like the canter shots

We had a lovely, wonderful canter on both leads. We stood in the middle and took pictures of the other horse going around. I tightened my girth from the saddle.

I've been dealing with a lot of stress lately, and this was just the perfect antidote. My little man did me proud and I'm still smiling about it.

It's been a long, rough winter, but this is why I dump all the blood, sweat, tears, and dollars into a horse--moments like this when the troubles of the world just fade away from a few glowing moments in the saddle. I'm so glad to be riding again.

Don't believe me? Here's a quick video of how cute he was!