Some days things are just falling into place - and looking ahead

Today I had one of these rides that left me feeling like I'm on top of the world. Yesterday was a different story: I had put Remy on the longe line because I wasn't sure if the ice and snow would come off the roof. That turned out not the issue: The cleaning lady running the broom up the windows in the observation room did the trick. I have never ever seen Remy like this: Snorting, flagging his tail, doing very nice PiPa (Piaffe/Passage), showing off incredible extended trot and canter with super engagement. Quite the performance!


It was my first ride since Tuesday due to work and a medical appointment. But it all clicked today, we were focused and neither of us did get distracted by the other horses. It made me think of Egon von Neindorff. One of my favorite parts on his DVD is him working a horse in hand, doing piaffe, and then Mr. von Neindorff saying; "Und nun lassen wir ihn alleine weiterarbeiten" (and now we let him work alone) - and sure enough, the horse calmly continued to piaffe on his own. OK, we are not at piaffe yet, (unless there is a broom in the window) but once engaged Remy kept the good work up. We are on the right track!


Even though we are on the right track, our Spring training will be quite different from Judy's other clients. While most of them are planning on the big Chicago shows at Lamplight, we decided to forgo these events as Remy still needs to get more relaxed at shows. It makes me feel a bit 'left out', but then we do have a full and very diverse schedule: Freestyle, Jan clinic, Horsemanship with Cows (!), some jumping, and certainly plenty of trailrides.


Remy's schoolbus (aka the trailer) is fixed - hopefully for good. Remy didn't get his weekend pass, despite all the good work today, due to snow. I forked over extra apples, bananas and carrots trying to make up for it.


So, things really did fall into place today - especially for JP and Judy: I scored more of their favorite and very hard-to-find French Madeleines for them!
Of course, we can't leave any one out so.... top of the line hay cubes for the boys and umh, yes, German chocolate for me :-)