I love my horse x 1,000,000

I had bar none the most amazing ride tonight on Lucy. Normally I get nice soft relaxation at the walk, but when we move to the trot she just wants to canter and so I spend the whole time circling and trying desperately to get her attention. Then I give up (I know, I know) and let her canter, then we go back to the trot and work more on that, but she still goes around looking half-giraffe.

Tonight, though, we had some great walking and trotting, including flexion and suppleness through her jaw(!!) AND acceptance of my leg through lateral movement. She was peppy but attentive, which is totally fine with me.

Ohhh but it didn't stop there! We moved onto the canter and she was SO good that I decided to push the envelope a bit and we did some halt/canter/halt transitions across the diagonal. She was AMAZING!!!!!!! She was cantering right off my leg from the halt. She is so ridiculously clever I can't even stand it sometimes. How did I get so lucky with my baby racehorse? Seriously, I went and tried her in the pitch black of night in a 16" pony saddle and discovered she didn't even know how to turn. Three short months later, we are doing walk/canter transitions and laying a really solid foundation for lead changes (not like she doesn't already do those naturally).

The whole thing just makes me sigh with content and thank the horse gods for not only her being a sane horse, but being a truly gifted and extremely athletic horse (and cute and sweet, to boot!!).

The icing on the cake was that I had made her a hot mash for dinner, which basically means I took her grain and her hay stretcher (pelleted hay for my non-horsey friends) and added goodies like mints, carrots, and other candies, and poured hot water into it and let the mixture sit and get really nice and mushy and delicious. Then when she was all cooled out and ready for her dinner, I poured the concoction into her bucket and she was so excited that she was quivering in her stall and nickering to me lol. I LOVE HER. Then she went at it and before long, had mash all over her face, the stall, and her hay lol. She is such a little piggy.

I am pretty sure I've gotten to the point where I would do absolutely anything for this horse.