Outside!

Today was amazing: 55 and sunny. Windy as hell, but I'll take it.

In honor of the gorgeous weather, Miss Lex got her first outdoor ride since we got to Ohio. She just loves to be outside. I thought she might be a goofball on the lunge line, but she settled right down. And she was perfect, she really was. Everything was easy, she was happy, and I thought, "If we're not going to work on the death-defying canter today, when are we going to work on it?"

HAHAHA.

She picked up the left lead even though we were going right, and then did a flying change all on her own. That was cute and classy, but then she proceeded to straight-up gallop off with me. I did some serious half-halts and after about, oh, five laps of the outdoor, I managed to get my act together enough to get her act together. Use the seat to slow the rhythm, self. It ain't rocket science.

The thing was, when I did actually get the canter under control, it was a really nice canter. In fact, even though it was a ridiculous beginning, I'm very excited about where the canter ended up. The two girls in the ring with me were like, "ooooooo." Of course, they're teenagers and they think anything a horse does is cool.

It took me about fifteen minutes after that to really get Lex to relax again. She had fun, she wanted to keep cantering, and was no longer interested in balance or connecting with the outside rein. It wasn't bad, though. She behaved herself and we had some nice work in the end. This is part of the green horse thing -- sometimes cantering is too exciting, and cantering on the first day outside ever might have been too much, even though she was super chill up until that point. Or maybe it was the right call, and the nice canter at the end is what matters.

After the ride, I cleaned my tack. Y'all were right about the Higher Standards soap -- it's really great, and I'm looking forward to having beautiful tack tomorrow, even though my horse is sure to be a mud ball because it'll be warm enough for her to go out without a sheet on. Sob.