She's Not Just a Pretty Face....

In my lesson yesterday, we rode almost the entire arena.  Laura had me ride her as Tessa offered to go into the scary half of the arena before gently guiding her back to a safe spot.  We kept her anxiety low and her attention mostly on me (don't forget I was holding a medicine ball in my hands the whole time, so this was nothing short of a miracle in itself).  If she lost some momentum through the 'scary' corner, but didn't get anxious we would allow her to come down to a walk.  Which she did, three times in a row.  A lovely, relaxed walk, in fact.  We praised her for staying calm and focused on the ride and not turning into a spooking, spinning mess.  Then we moved on and did other things.  Later in the lesson we came back to that side of the arena, but this time I kept her focused on working and I took control of the direction we were going before she decided to.  And guess what?  My smart little pony though "Aha!  I know what this corner is!  This is the WALKING corner!"  and promptly dropped into a walk.  This, folks, is why you are *always* training your horse, even when you're not training for what you want.  I was training for confidence in the spooky corner and my horse thought I was training for walking in the corner.  Hilarious, smart pony!  So, yes, we then did that corner four more times at a trot all the way through with effusive praise for holding the trot and staying relaxed.

Speaking of relaxed, here are some pictures of her pre-ride yawn.