Last day for the week

Saturday I was anxious to see how our bonding would affect our ride. Toby seemed excited to see me again.

We went into the arena just as the neighbors took up target shooting practice. "Oh, this should be FUN." LOL. You can imagine how amazed I was when Toby didn't even react. HMMMMM, we really must be on to something.

Again, I didn't want to push Toby too hard because he had been going so well. We warmed up and again he was really relaxed. I climbed aboard and off we went.

We leg yielded, we serpentined, we halted, we troted, we extended, we collected. Please don't let it end. THIS IS AWESOME!!!

Again, I tried to focus on staying relaxed and not using my hands excessively. It was working. My hands were better, my seat and legs were nore effective and Toby was responding in kind.

My instructor had another lesson with a young rider for the last 1/2 of our ride. The rider and pony we trotting around us complete with a some spooking. Toby didn't seem to notice. He was focused on the task at hand and never faltered. WOW!! Go Toby.

I asked him to canter on the 20 meter circle and we were absolutely floating. It was so nice, in fact, that my instructor enthusiastically commented on how nice he looked from across the arena while still instructor her other student. I think she was as pleased as I was with how well he was doing.

We are done for the week. And what a week it was. Lesson learned: You CAN actually be extremely effective with your seat and legs. I also learned that Toby does much better when he works more consistenly. He is really intelligent and needs to exercise his brain frequently to maintain his sanity.

Hopefully, the progress will continue. More to follow soon.