Like a Barrel Pony on Crack...

That's kind of what it feels like when I canter Sophie.

Today's lesson was great, as what's becoming always. Sophie is on the bit, round, and starting to work over her back. She's found a comfort zone in what will become her natural frame when she's in self carriage. I'm thrilled that she's finally accepting contact, steady contact, and no longer throws her head.

But there's a downside...she is soooo comfortable with my hands that she's just fine with me holding her head up. My arms are not cut out for holding up Sophie's head. I was bad, and let her get away with it last lesson because I was so thrilled that she was so accepting of my hands and contact.

So this lesson we got to work on convincing her to hold her own head up. We started with trotting big circles to warm up and moving on to changing direction across the diagonal through round lines so that it was easier to work on changing her bend, that way it wasn't a long straight line across the diagonal. Once we had those going pretty good we moved on to three loop serpentines.

After that we did some leg yielding from the quarterline and those went much better than last week. We finished up with some canter work and it was fast, that's when Sophie started acting like a barrel pony on crack. She was fast and cantering big while about to break into a trot at any moment, she was also starting to wear out my arms with hanging on me. So during that walk break Kim and I talked about it and how Sophie was just going to get heavier if I let her, and that it'd be ok for Training Level, and even First Level, but it'd kill me any higher.

I think the turning point was recognizing how thrilled and grateful I was that she was just being so steady in her contact, that I just wanted to savor the moment. So after the walk break we worked on cantering to the right (Sophie's worse direction) and I really worked on half halting and then shaking her off. Something we'd worked on to the left, but I hadn't seen any real results. But to the right, she was like a changed horse, up, but round, Kim said she was almost there, almost completely through but at least had schwung when trotting prior to cantering.

The canter was much better, slower, but on the forehand, so I continued to really *ride* the canter. Inside leg, inside leg, half halt, shake her off, half halt, inside leg, shake her off, half halt, inside leg, half halt, shake her off, just constant. I'm sure it's not the prettiest thing to watch right now, but she didn't break into the trot and we had three *great* strides of canter. Really, really good canter. But then we lost it, and didn't get it quite back. At that point I was feeling queasy and called an end to the lesson, and cooled Sophie out.

I have another lesson on Thursday night and will have two next week, hopefully. Then just one the next due to Thanksgiving, two the week after that, and I'm not sure if I'll have another past that point because Kim is leaving on a Wednesday and I'm not sure she's going to want to give a lesson the night before she leaves.