One small stride of canter.....

....a giant leap for Lutine.

OK, corny I know. We had a little ride in the field today and Miss L was quite lively as usual. She does get a little anxious about being away from her friends in the paddocks and of course, they call to her while we're riding in the field and get excited themselves. We were trying to do relaxed walk but it's better, at least initially, to try and match her energy and do some trots and then see if you can bring her back down as she settles. As we did a bit of trotting up the slope and across the diagonal of the field, I sat twice to change the trot diagonal and that moment of sitting had Lutine mistake it as an aid for canter! We only did a stride or so (and heck, it felt like there's quite a nice canter waiting to be discovered!) before we dropped back to trot. But still, it was good of her to offer. I take it as a sign that she must be feeling OK about the riding. And we got the nice relaxed walk shortly after, where I could feel both her hips swinging and her lumbar area unlocking. Felt good.