The arena was still pretty mushy today after the recent rains, so our lunge session was only short ... I rolled the trot poles into a dry section so we didn't go sliding... I put them back at the distance he likes, and he was very comfortable over them to the left... He was really stretching down to look where he was putting his feet, and had a really nice round outline; he also had a very nice high action over them....
Then it came to the right, and I don't think I was seeing what he was seeing, but something was a boogeyman in that direction. He baulked at the start, trotted the first pole, then decided to jump the final three... haha. Very nice action over them though, I was quite impressed. Of course, that wasn't what I wanted! So we did a few laps and called it quits when he did a nice line.
Then I hopped on the ride. The usual, walk and trot in circles to either direction. And for the first time, I asked him to canter under saddle in the arena .... At first his didn't really understand and just got faster (and longer, omg it was huge!) in the trot. So I steadied the pace, and asked again at the same point in the arena ... He got a bit faster, then broke into canter and we quietly cantered one long side to the other - bit of a stumble in the middle but that's more than okay for his first real canter with a rider!... I was soooooo proud of him... We did that a few more times; until he started to get a wee bit too excited. When that happened, I called it a day, and gave him huge pats!! We then took a nice leisurely stroll around the ring road for something different. Apparently, one of the Arab mares was a boogeyman that we needed to spook at. Silly pony.
We unsaddled and had a good brush down (one of the girls out there commented it was 'snowing' because of the amount of hair he's shedding right now!) ... I gave him dinner and then presented him with his brand new rug! Blue camo print!! haha ... I think it looks cool... I think perhaps he's not so convinced.
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