I'm No Hero.

I'm just a regular guy who took a dressage lesson at 6:30am.

A dressage lesson.

If you know me at all, you know that I will bounce out of bed at the crack of dawn for jumping, or to see my Lexi, or to go watch a horse show. But I have never been super excited about dressage. My theory on that is that I've never been good at it. I do fine in my jumping lessons, but get a little wrapped around in the axle in dressage. And like horses, we all enjoy doing what we're good at.

But the dressage is getting better. I need to work really hard on keeping my shoulders back and not throwing away the reins if Seneca, for instance, takes a trot step in the walk-to-canter transition. We also worked on canter-to-walk today, which was good for me. I had to first get the right canter--pretty collected (on a horse who will stand straight up if you do one too many half-halts) and then get the right timing. It's a work in progress, but we got it right a couple of times. Doing walk pirouettes is good, too, because the trick there is to not lose the rhythm of the walk. The fun discovery of the day was when M realized that I do know how to sit the trot. I love sitting trot. I realize this makes me a weirdo.

I really hope that at some point, I can get photo evidence of these dressage lessons. Maybe in a couple weeks, when my mom is back in town. And then maybe this dumb fake internet will cooperate.

Seneca and I are figuring each other out. He's being more patient with me than I'd have expected. And M is such a phenomenal coach that I'm able to be patient with me too, while I figure out this new discipline. Maybe at some point I'll be able to drop my stirrups a bit.

 Lex's radiographs are tomorrow. Good thoughts, please.