The Good... The Bad... & The Ugly

So I went out & rode Cheyenne today... & here we go.

The Good:
- The weather was LOVELY, breezy & warm, but not too hot.

- My horse TROTTED... and it didn't take me kicking her @$$ either. A light tap & a cluck... and off she went! Nearly EVERY TIME I asked her! It was a miracle, something must have just "clicked". It looks like now we can actually add trotting to one of our regular gaits, instead of one of the gaits we attempt when pony's having a good day.

- We trotted for about THIRTY FIVE MINUTES. Not straight, obviously. But several minutes at a time. As of our last ride if I could get her to trot for 35 SECONDS we were having a good day. I am ECSTATIC.

- Cheyenne's steering has improved, even at the trot. It wasn't perfect (see "The Bad") but it was IMPROVED. We're making progress, & that's the important part!

- It didn't take me 30 minutes to mount. Cheyenne is notorious for being a wiggly mount & I am notorious for being a nervous mounter. It's not a good combination, but it's a skill we're working on. I found a nice little corner in the arena I can box her into with the mounting block & we didn't have any issues today. Whee!

The Bad:
- Cheyenne remains testy, of course. She picked two cones in the arena that she just decided she was NOT going to stay to the inside of (Remember the steering "ugly" I mentioned... this was it.) Don't even ask me why, there was nothing on the ground, the footing was not deep, the arena had just been drug. She just chose these places to be an ornery snot & it took about all my leg pressure & upper body strength to pull her head around and MAKE her stay on the inside. If she can get away with being a snot, she'd prefer it. We're still battling over who is REALLY in control, but she's finally learning it's not her. I won at each of her little trials in the end & she finally conceded & found that it's easier to just listen than to fight with mom.

- My legs are trembling violently from our 35 minutes of trotting. I was by NO means in shape for that. I'd been riding pony in a western saddle doing a sitting trot for about 15 seconds at a time before today. Let me just say... Posting. Trot. Kills. No matter what anyone says about it being easier. On the bright side, it's much more effective than the butterfly weight machine at the gym. Yayyy for a decent workout & spending time doing what I love (which I definitely can NOT say about the gym!)

The Ugly:
- THE ROLL! The roll that comes after you've spent far too long trying to get off every last speck of dirt. The roll that comes after you've tried hard to scrape off as much water as humanly possible. The slow & painful roll where the culprit takes his or her time to rub every square inch of his or her body into the dirt sufficiently before standing up... only to nail the other side. THAT roll. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!