A good ride...

for me anyway.  I'm not so sure how much Harry enjoyed it.  Poor guy, he's so patient with me and all my mistakes. 

Hubby took a bunch of pictures, and besides showing how much weight I have to lose, they show just how tight I hold the reins.  I'm having a really hard time giving up my dressagey "light contact" ways.  The reins go straight from the bit to my hand...no western drape AT ALL.  And the shame of it all, it that I THOUGHT, AS I WENT AROUND, THAT I WAS MUCH LOOSER TODAY than last time.  Poor guy.  It will be a miracle if I don't wreck his wonderful show gaits.  Thankfully, I have enough sense to know I'm not ready to lope on him yet.  We don't need to add THAT to mix yet.

He gave me just a bit of "I'm going to stop and not walk".  I used the extra rein to slap my boot and he walked off nicely.  He tried that one more time so in additional to slapping my boot I waved the ends out where he could see them.  I got a little more "response" than I wanted; nothing serious but he sure picked up his head and got 'steppy' on me.  Okay, note to self:  dial THAT back a little.  All in all, I had a good ride.  I learned a little bit more about Harry, learned a LOT more about me and got some good pictures to study.

Today was also farrier day.  He stood very nicely to get his shoes put back on.  This was his 3rd time with our farrier and he was the best today.  The first two times he acted very baby-ish:  didn't want to pick up his feet, would rock in the crossties, wanted to bite the farrier's butt when she was working on the front feet.  This time no rocking, very little chewing and didn't even try to bite.  He's coming along and settling in; finding out he has to mind his manners at our barn too.

I think having his shoes on definitely improved his jog: when I was better at riding, his jog was better.  Now that I've seen the pictures, I feel I want to go back and try again.  But, for his sake, I will wait until tomorrow.  I think having to put up with me for 20 minutes a day is tough enough on the guy.

He still took treats from me and enjoyed getting his forehead scratched so I guess he forgives me.

BTW, the weather is beautiful.  Low humidity and temp in the 70s with a cool breeze:  couldn't be better for riding!