decent ride

Pretty decent ride on Lulu tonight. Not only did I get up the nerve to put my legs on her, but I sat what she dished out well, corrected her with a one-rein stop, and proceeded to have some nice moments. I asked her nicely to move her ribcage over while going to the right (her worse direction) and she obliged and actually did it. AMAZING! We did lots of trot poles, which kept her mind busy, and then we ended the ride with ten minutes of walk/trot transitions. At the very end I did one lap of canter to the right and she was sooo light and soft, and it was a clear three beat gait. I was really happy with that so we ended it on that note! :)

One thing I have caught myself doing a lot lately, and I wonder if this is exacerbating the bucking issue, is putting almost no weight on my inside stirrup at the canter. Somehow I must be trying to counterbalance her since she just loves to lean to the inside, but what I really should be doing is putting weight in that stirrup along with the outside, and applying a supporting inside leg while balancing her on the outside rein. I really tried to work on that tonight. It's a nasty habit but it's probably annoying as all hell to the horse.

It was warm enough today that the outdoor footing thawed, so I let her have some time to blow off steam. Her knee looked pretty much normal and she was sound on it and she was pretty "up" when I brought her in from her paddock. She had a great time out there! It's been a while since she's been able to play like this.