Well, at least I got to ride.

Eh, you win some, you lose some. Today wasn't exactly productive, but at least I have a horse, right?

I started my ride with a nice review to get things moving: walk long and low, overflex down the short stretches, leg yield to loosen up, and trot. Trot circles, serpentines, etc, some shoulder-in, rapid transitions, and then a walk break. He got a little bunched up during our transitions and started anticipating, so he got to unwind on a loose rein for a few minutes.

We picked up a canter on a twenty-meter circle to test our brakes. He had been pretty good before, so no problem, right? Nope. He was lazy on the transition, and I overweighted my outside leg, making my inside foot slip too far into its stirrup. He was doing all right, so I shifted a little to get my foot repositioned. I guess I unbalanced him or something, because he sped up. I half-halted, he didn't listen. I whoah'd, no response. I gave a really firm stop cue, he sped up, so I had to resort to a cavalry stop. He ran through it with his nose in the air for a few strides, and finally came back down to me.

We trotted a circle and walked so we could calm down and I could rethink things. He had broken from the circle in the process of my picking up my stirrup, so I made note of that.

This time, I weighted my heels and cued like I meant it. No stirrup loss, he started off well. We cantered two circles and I cued for a trot. He didn't listen immediately, but after I gave him a really big half-halt, he came back down.

Trot, trot, trot, circle, circle, circle, canter. He did a lot better the third time, so we cantered a few circles. Again, he didn't immediately listen, but he did a lot better. We trotted another circle, he got a lot of "Good boy"s, and we called it a day.

I have a lot to work on, but I feel like I learned a bit today. I definitely feel more confident that I can fix things if he gets too rambunctious. Berky didn't seem to resent me for it, either, especially not after he got a bath and a carrot.