Manning up!

Poor Danaroo! He went from 3 rides in 3 weeks, to 3 lessons in 1 week. But he's thriving on it. :) Even without the double dose red cell. ;) ha!

I was hoping to take him for a nice enjoyable hack over the weekend to let him have a chill ride, but I ended up studying, doing barn stuff, and then going to the lake with Mike. (Ahhh... to be a real person again doing stuff, not just working!) So instead of a chill ride, he just got two days off. Today was our lesson with Cindy and now I'm back in Kansas for acupuncture school round 3. So he gets another 5 days off, but then back to work.

Anyways, clearly he is feeling fit and good. He walked to the arena on the buckle like a good kid and was even pretty chill in the arena at first. Then they started lunging this cute little appy pony and then Portia left the arena. So Dan had to be rowdy. We started with some little bucks and scoots and shoulder drops and crow hops. It wasn't too bad but he was catty today and twice almost unseated me. hee heee. But then he settled and was brilliant. I LOVE sassy Dan. :) We got some really nice trot work out of him today. 

And guess what?!?! We got NO lead changes :) :) We held the right lead for a shallow serpentine, then a serpentine to X, and then... even a 3 loop canter serpentine!! Granted I made the first two loops tight, and left the counter canter one very shallow, but he held it. And we had a fairly decent canter too. Whoo hooo!!! 

We had some pretty lovely trot work. I'm actually starting to feel it to and being able to ride him more effectively. He was pretty stiff to the right today, as usual, but I was better able to feel that the right side was way too long and shorten it and use that outside rein to get him into the contact.

 It was a fun day. :) I may have to outwit his rowdyness with counter canters and leg yields at Chatt for our Tadpole test... hee hee. But that's okay. :) 

Dan's reward for his hard work today