Beauty

This right here is a thing of beauty.

This is hundreds of hours of work, sweat, and no small amount of tears to create.  It's not perfect, and the picture is terrible with the untrimmed top of his neck hiding the topline, but there's a new bit of definition running just under his crest that I spotted today when he was whickering and playing cute to get treats from someone.  This used to be an upside down mess.  Now?  It's almost believable that this is a dressage horse.

That jumps like a rocket, but shush.

I think he missed seeing me this week.  I got lots of whickers and very little bratty behavior on the crossties.  He gave me some very nice work in the outdoor as the cold front started to push through, enjoying the cool breeze on a 70* day.  We worked on his lightness since he's going through a bit of a hanging on the bit phase, particularly at the canter.  Mom likes it when he puts his head down at the canter, right?  So he'll just put his head way down and hang on the bit.

No, papi.  No.

Lots of transitions until he decided he should carry himself because mom could decide at any moment to change the game plan.  He lifted that lovely neck of his and suddenly went soft in the reins.  Ah ha, so that's what self carriage feels like!  I could stop or start without it being a big deal.  It lasted all of five minutes, but those were some glorious minutes.

Today Theo was officially pulled out of the school horse roster.  He is now entirely my ride.  Just in time to tune him up to be a show horse.  Less than a month till the season starts!  I splurged on some training rides this month, so Trainer A will be riding him once a week.  Poor papi, off to boot camp.  Two lessons and one training ride every week.  Not that he minds.  He's discovered what a canter lengthening is like.  Those are pretty cool.  Slowing back down?  Now that's stupid.