Today: Canter; Tomorrow: The World!

Quick update before a long-overdue bedtime: Lex canters on both leads! She is SUCH A STAR. She was a little bit of a shit when I was trying to get on, but I'll get her standing nicely at the mounting block before long - maybe a little more groundwork will help.

I need more pictures of her under saddle

But once I was on, holy crap, she was amazing today. It is not going to be a problem to get this girl to travel long and low, because she really wants to put her nose on the ground and streeeeeeeetch her back. She loves doing that. We did a trot pole figure 8 exercise to warm up the brain after we'd done some halt-walk-trot transitions and then I asked her to canter. It didn't take her as long to get it this time, and we got a marvelous left lead canter. Again, I left the reins loopy and held the neck strap and just hung in there in a two point. After a couple mildly enthusiastic strides she settled into a lovely rhythm and I was grinning like crazy. I let her walk for awhile, and did a little more trotting, and then asked for a canter going right. She picked up her left lead at first (no biggie, I don't care what lead she's on at this stage) and then she tossed her head. She wasn't happy to be on the wrong lead, so you know what she did? A simple change through the trot.

CLEVER. GIRL.

We cantered a couple laps to the right, I let her walk for awhile, then we trotted like two circles just to make sure she wasn't too up in the air (not at all, she was happy to trot around with her nose on the ground) and went on a short walk around the field.

I'm so proud of her I could cry. I think tomorrow, if I get a chance to ride her, I'll just walk her around the fields, up and down some little hills, to give her a break.

Tomorrow I'll have some Rocket videos for you!