Warming trend

It's warming here for a bit, creating opportunities for turnout (yay!), spot cleaning, and digits that aren't frozen! Hunter and I had a pretty good lesson yesterday, the best of which was clearing the tiniest crossrail in history three times. Canter is a work in progress. (what else is new?).

Today I got to the barn late. Ran into the hall and L was there watching A on Driftwood. F was also riding Griffin. I had a chat with her which I thought was leading toward a plan under which F and A would leave and I would simply turn Hunter out in the indoor hall and chase him around. L, however, had a different thought, especially after I confided the events of the past week. "I think you should grab him and go for a ride." Roger that.

So off I went to grab horse and grab tack, and, mirabile dictu (and thank you, L) F and Griffin came moseying out of the hall, with F offering to stay in there with me while I rode. Great news . . .. maybe?

Well, we got in there and went around a bit walking and trotting with no disasters. (victory is mine!) and then we tried a bit of cantering with the F/G partnership in the lead. Oh dear. It's so disorganized on my part. Ran up on F/G's hind then pulled back and got a crazy trot. I forgot about half-halting. Various crazy lean-in turns. Oy! Then F/G offered to stand in the middle while I just cantered around. That was also pathetic, but slightly short of awful. It is a measure of my current situation that this was another kind of victory.

I gather there was a piece in Practical Horseman recently acknowledging the canter struggles of many an adult amateur.

So that's the question of my riding life right now . . . Will it get better if I keep bashing away? And if not, what is the alternative? Give him the rest of the winter off?