Happy Feet

We had quite the entertaining ride on Saturday.  Coro had "Happy Feet" as my barn manager likes to say, and we zoomed around the arena for the better part of an hour.  I dropped my whip after the first twenty minutes or so -  forward was not an issue! I finally got to listen to some of the music I've been collecting for riding to, and while Coro was initially suspicious of the melodies emanating from my arm band, we discovered some songs that work especially well for his gaits if we could ever attain some consistent rhythm.  I thought if I let him trot and trot and trot enough with lots of circles, loops and serpentines, I might tire him out enough for a little bit of focus but this was not the case.  In evaluating my sore legs later, I realized that we trotted for nearly a solid hour, with some cantering and very few walk breaks.  My horse was FULL OF GO.  Unfortunately, this also means choppy-scurry-trot and straight-up neck, but we did get a few nice circling moments of elastic and round for which he was lavishly praised.  The loveliest happy accident was when I was containing his turbo-trot into a tiny circle (a volte if we're being fancy) and he ever-so-softly-and-slyly picked up the canter like "maybe she won't notice if I canter reeeaallly slowly?" so there we were in this unreal molasses canter around a diminutive circle.  I won't call it a pirouette BUT IT WAS AWESOME.  I had hoped to do some pretend jumping (this is what I call it when I let Coro trot over ground poles set between jump standards and he pretends they are 2'6 verticals) but I only let him go over once because he was way too excited.  As expected, it went trot trot trot WAAAAHOOOO! I laughed. I think Coro did, too. Oh, he is a funny boy.  Sometimes I think I should let someone braver than I take him over some real jumps - he so obviously loves it.  After our ride I curried all his sweaty itchy spots and then we shared an apple while he grazed.  Heart my horse.