Solo Performance

Peanut and I had a very nice solo ride today.  I kept it short, not even 2.5 miles, but he was willing to give me more.  How do I know?  Because as I went to turn back at a junction of three trails, feeling him gunning for the one leading home, I instead turned him to the one leading deeper into the park.  He let his disapproval be known (as he did at each intersection), but then settled in and walked on.  At that point I halted him, gave him a cookie, and he got to turn around.

We did some cantering, some gaiting, but mostly walking.  Today I FINALLY noticed a head nod as he gaited.  I always thought he just never had one (or I was too busy watching where we were going and not staring at his noggin), but there were times today when his little head was a-bobbing away as we moved.  I still don't know if it was the real deal as he was changing gears around pretty quickly and it was fleeting, but I'll take it.

At one point, on a downhill, he stumbled and came out gaiting.  I swear it felt like when you trip and just end up jogging afterwards, which is obviously a horse tactic as well.  Oh, he didn't trip at all!  He meant to just start gaiting!

Another odd thing: I felt my weight loss today in the saddle.  I could go into great detail about the realization of the loss of massive thigh spread on saddle panels, but I won't.  :)

As he drank from a stream, I tried to grab some pics but he found that I was being too slow and too boring and we had better things to do.  So, instead I got some shots of him wandering his way home against the omg-please-turn-green background.  He looks like the softest stuffed animal here, so cute.

And then we went to the coffee shop that's attached to the place selling my jewelry, and entertained ourselves by watching a squirrel demolish a biscotti that it found outside.