CanterFail

Mo and I have had our ups and downs, which is how it goes with green horses, especially when they have me riding them instead of Mary King. The past couple weeks have been excellent, between the XC school and the show and the evidence of his jumping progress (and another jumping lesson later today, yay). But the videos from which I got those great stills also had some hilarious shots of my horse being a butthead about cantering.

Why is he a butthead about cantering? Because he's lazy. It's work to be in a faster gait and have to still be balanced and all that stuff. It's funny--his canter is naturally really nice, so he shouldn't get this wrapped around the axle about it, but it's who he is. And it's coming a long way, even since this lesson last month. Maybe there will be evidence of that again soon.

So anyway, I thought that for your amusement, and to assure you that it isn't all kisses and carrots around here, I'd share some of my favorite stills of Mo totally failing to canter. Enjoy.

"IT'S MY LEFT REIN NOT YOURS!"

A view of this maneuver from the other side.

He's calling his union rep.

"My blaze is still pretty upside down"

"I. Want. That. Rein."

Yep. We jumped down that line. It was fine, actually.

Can I please have my standing martingale back?

Hee. If riding through that won't make me keep my shoulders back, nothing bloody will. His little fits are ridiculous, and while they're hilarious, I'd rather have a lovely canter. So maybe in eight months I can do another comparison post and be all "look how dumb he was then and how dumb he isn't now!" Horse training: Making the horse (and rider) less dumb over time. Right?