Beaming

This morning Brett and I squeezed a ride in before the vet came out for spring vaccinations.  The weather was perfect, 60F, with clear skies, a light breeze, birdsong and the arena sand still slightly damp from last week's rain.

(I can't take any pictures as our camera died last night.  It was in Camille's pocket when the shed came down on her and it sustained quite a few dings and dents.  -- which is fine with me.  I'd rather have a broken camera and not a broken daughter.  It has not worked well since then and last night it quit completely).

Lucy is no longer in heat so I didn't have to scrub her disgusting hind legs and she was chill at the tie rail.  In the arena, she marched right out (when she is in heat, she is very sluggish).  I wore my tall boots.  This is the first time I've worn them since they came back from the cobbler with zippers and gussets.  I think I will wear them all the time.  I loved how they kept my lower leg quiet and against Lucy's side.  With a sensitive horse like Lucy, you have to keep your leg against her all the time.  That way, she knows where I am and kicks or bumps don't come out of no where; there are no surprises, just gentle nudges.  Lucy was very forward and relaxed.  We worked on transitions within trot first.  I posted as we sailed along the long sides and then sat and compressed a bit on the short sides.  We did circles with transitions between trot and canter.  Last, we did arena laps at canter.  I picked up the canter at A or C, rode a 20m circle at E/B, back down the long side, the short side and then we did some extended canter on the long side.  I sat tall and braced in my back a tiny bit to get her back to a working canter.  We changed direction at trot and picked up the canter again.  Lucy wanted to skip the 20m circle and go straight to extended.  She started to rush and lose her frame, throwing her head in the air and hopping.  We did a few more 20m circles.  When she was relaxed, we went back down the long side and had a lovely, controlled extension.  Brett was sitting on Mufasa in the middle of the arena, watching us.  I transitioned down to a walk, stopped, and beamed at him.

Meanwhile, he and Mufasa had a great ride as well.  Mufasa found his rhythm and balance in the trot.  He halted from thought.  He backed with no pressure; just a simple ask.  And they had the straightest canter I've seen from them yet.  They looked pretty pleased with themselves, too.

After putting the horses away and cleaning my tack, I sat on the front porch and drank it in.  Brett started lugging his project equipment out to the compost bin site.  He saw me and called over, "Are you all right?  What are you doing?"

"I'm sitting here being happy" was my reply.  He smiled and joined me on the porch.