Now my vest is telling on me - and more 'speed dates' are in the future

Lessons on both boys - with several definite 'aha!' moments.

All four boys are due for the dentist, most of all Remy, who is getting a bit fussy in the bridle. I'm not enjoying the process of scheduling the appointment, though. Doug, the dentist is great, he has done our horses for 15+ years, but nailing him down for an appointment stretches my (admittedly short) patience to it's very limits. ("I'm at the end of my rope and you are tugging on it")

Nevertheless, Remy worked really well in his lesson, and actually was good in the bridle. Me - another story. But then, my eternal problem is that I'm never satisfied with myself anyhow. So when Judy astutely pointed out that my stomach was caved in: "I can see it by the wrinkles of your vest", I was thinking "Oh, great, now even my clothes are giving me away!" But of course, once I straightened myself out, meaning lifting the area right below my chest, things improved noticeably. Another really helpful suggestion was to pretend riding without stirrups, which automatically got my legs right where they should have been all along.

It was a busy afternoon, with our more riders in the arena. Especially one big warmblood was going around us disconcertingly close with heavy 'bump bump' canter strides. Remy was rather unfazed by all this, not so his pilot. Years on Saumur have 'trained' me to always by on the lookout for the next potential meltdown; and so I don't handle crowds very well. This has messed up our warm ups in crowded show arenas and subsequently marred our tests in the past quite a bit.

Judy asked me to do a stretchy trot in serpentines around the other riders. Sure, lady, anything else I can do for you? :-) But of course, the little guy had it all figured out, and we cruised around like old pros. Thankfully the kid has good brains!

Selecting the canter music for Saumur's freestyle proved to be rather frustrating  There was no really "Loving It" among the seven candidates. It rather felt like speed dating: "Nope - Next"! Saumur handled the stop and go really well, the work we had done on getting the half-halts better established and keeping his forehand light paid excellent dividends (thanks for drilling that in, Jude!). We had good canter half-passes, and clean changes both leads.

So, I guess there are more speed dates in our future, hope the stats of finding a (music) winner are better than what my friends report from attending the 'real deal'!