Belated Christmas Gift

On my way home from work yesterday, I stopped by the Post Office and picked up my belated Christmas gift from my friend, A.  She designed this patch for me and then had a seamstress make it and sew it onto a saddle pad. 

a white saddle pad - because she likes to encourage
Walker's nonexistent dressage dreams

I thought it was very thoughtful of her.  Now I have approximately four months to come up with something equally thoughtful for her for her birthday.  The pressure!

After that, I drug myself out to the barn against my own will on Tuesday night and was pleasantly surprised with the ponykins.

First of all, we actually picked up where we left off on Sunday.  Which made starting over on Sunday seem less frustrating.

close-up

Mainly we worked on forward.  I didn't care what he did as long as he went forward.  And because I'm a slave driver, I insisted that he not only be forward like a rocket ship, but that he be as light as a feather.  If he didn't go when I barely touched him on the side, he got a wallop.

This is where the "pleasantly surprised" part came in.  Right from the beginning, he was remembering this lesson from Sunday, and I was impressed with some of the trot we got out of it, all things considering.  

Once the trotting started exhausting him, his "light as a feather, forward like a rocketship" mindset started to dissipate, and I decided to quit while I was ahead. (Side note: This mantra makes me think: "I'm a leaf on the wind.  Watch how I soar.")

I applied this to the canter too for a few minutes, but then thoroughly screwed up our ability to leg yield.  The minute I put my leg back, he freaked out despite all the other aids telling him it was just a simple side pass.  That's ok.  We'll go back and smooth that over soon enough.

It could also be the fact that I almost side passed us into another horse.  Pish posh.  Technicalities.