Circles?

Hello everybodies, how are you? I am fabulous, but a bit tired even though I had a super short pony ride. You know what Cyd made me do today? Some fancy pony stuff called dressage. I don't think I like it. It's hard work. We were going to go on a trail ride to test my new pad, but even my shortest loopy takes me nearly an hour and a half. Instead, Cyd decided we would ride in the place I do my circles practice, except there isn't a circle place so we had to use the whole arena. Believe it or not, despite how grown up I am, I have never done pony riding in the whole arena. Before we got to put me in the arena, Cyd had to catch the ponies who live there and tie them up so they didn't chase me. While she was gone I totally broke free and was grazing. Apparently that is Not Appropriate. Oopsies. The first thing Cyd thought we should do was let me get all my extra energies out of my body so I didn't make her fall down from me. Turned out this was a good idea, I had a lot of running around to do.

Trotting politely

Good strides

Legs not going in the right directions

Stream lining myself to go fast

Keeping my eye on you

Neeeooww

During my running around, one of my pads came free cos for Cyd forgetting to tighten my girth another hole. I tried to run away but it chased me until it fell off my back. Cyd went to retrieve it, and gave me another couple of minutes to finish my hijinks before putting my rope on and fixing my pads. Aunty V came to watch me, and was impressed that even though I was a bit hyper, I was fake tied (my rope just hanging over the gate, not attached to anything), and my pad had spooked me, and Cyd still untacked and retacked me without me running away. I really am getting to be a grown up. She stayed to watch me for a minute to make sure I wasn't going to make Cyd fall down but I had my working brain on now. We were just walking around making me be relaxed and doing something called 'looking for contact'. Once I was happy we started doing trottings practice. It's really hard to do proper trottings in circles, and I got tired quite fast. So we took a break and practiced doing turning-on-my-forehand. This is the maneuver that helps me and Cyd open and go through gates, so even though I didn't know the move, I know kinda how to do gates, so I figured it out quite quickly. I didn't get it right away, and not perfect yet, but after just a few tries I could turn all around and only picked up my foot one time (and put it down in the same spot). We also rode through the fallen-down barrels that were a little troublesome for me when I was doing my hijinksing. I was okay but nervous the first time, then the second time Cyd's dressage whip scraped the barrel and made me do spooking and scooting forward. We kept practicing and soon I was able to see that it wasn't scary to go through, and was trotting through with no problems. Then we did practicing of me doing stopping, then going straight to trotting. This was really hard for me, so we didn't do much, cos for Cyd realising that even though it was a short ride, my brain was getting tired. I did some good moves and Cyd said it was time to be done and hopped off me. I got tied up while the ponies who live in the arena got put away and I didn't break free this time. Then Cyd decided to ride me home. Aunty V had to help me, cos for me getting stuck. Thanks for leading me Aunty V, sorry for forgetting to be a grown up for a while!!