back to normal

I've been working on getting Lucy back into solid work, and she really impressed me tonight. On Sunday I got on and walked her around in my Western saddle (and got a lot of strange looks...I was like, what, she's a versatile horse!). Yesterday (Monday), I didn't let her run around before riding and still tried to have a productive ride and really it was very frustrating. Today I learned from experience and let her have some fun in the ring before I tacked her up and we had just the BEST ride. Oh she was such a pleasure to ride, I felt like I was riding a cloud at times. She even jumped around a bit and we worked on a figure 8 pattern around the ring, with one diagonal being a little three stride crossrail line, and the other diagonal being a single vertical line. She just cruised around and got her changes every time, and we ended it at that because she was being so awesome.

Here is one more photo of her, standing in the aisle after I pulled her mane:

"Ok, now that I put up with all that nonsense, where's my cookie?!?!?!"