Realizations

I've been trying so hard to make progress every time I play with Lady over the last while instead of just doing stuff for an hour and then being done.

Well, last night it finally hit me that we have made a lot of progress - lots more than I thought!  I don't have pictures to show you exactly what I'm talking about, but I have older pictures and I'll get newer ones as soon as I can. Things just really dawned one me last night while working with her.

August 2012

Lady is definitely a lot more trim now. See those wrinkles in her neck? They're not there anymore, and even though she could stand to lose a few more pounds, she is carrying herself so much better and a lot of that weight is muscle now instead of just fat. She is a big horse by nature though.

Not sure about the date, but at least 3 years back.

Here her trot looks quite rushed and hollow. Her belly is dropped and overall she looks tense. We had trouble with this up until pretty recently. Yesterday is when I really noticed that she is consistently more round now. She tracks up nicely, her neck is rounder and she is much more relaxed and bent properly. Yes, she still has moments where she goes back to old habits, but overall, SO much improved.

These things have also translated to riding. The Lady has become so much calmer and more responsive. She is still herd/home bound, but is starting to listen more instead of always having to go her way. For the longest time, even a simple trot was out of reach because she would tense and hollow and get out of control. Now, we are actually connecting at the trot and thinking about the canter. Success!!

Same session as photo above.

Speaking of the canter, it is also much better. She is finally able to hold it  with a decent form and stay relaxed and it shouldn't be long before we can start doing it under saddle. Really excited for that! :)