A fun exercise ride

Did a short exercise ride on Bandit before volunteering this afternoon, it was so much fun! I'm sad there is only one more week of the year left, I enjoy riding him. Did a lot of trying to bend him, maintaining some sort of rhythm at the trot, slowing him down with my seat and organizing his trot a bit. I have to say again that I enjoy his canter so, so much! It's funny since he works best with minimal contrast-- quite a departure from the need-contact-to-canter issues I've been having in my lessons. His canter (well, lope-- it's slow!) is so smooth and easy to ride. I tried to work on keeping my elbows back and, of course, my seat deep to prepare me for tomorrow's lesson. All in all, a very fun ride even though I didn't quite "work" as much as in a formal lesson

Mixing it up a bit

Today at Xenophon I rode Bandit before all of the students came, it was the first time I had ridden him in about a month (when I was riding Echo instead). Bandit is basically the antithesis of what I've been working on in my dressage lessons: slow, doesn't particularly like contact, basically a western pleasure-type horse. And for what therapeutic riding is, he's excellent. So part of riding him, for me, is working on letting go of my dressage ideals and going with how he wants to be ridden. And once I get past that, his little jog and lope are so cute and comfortable I could definitely get used to them! Tomorrow I have a longe lesson, my first in about two years... should make for an interesting day!