Came back from Canada, got an email from Kristine that Elle hadn't been good, but hadn't been bad, and that she was shitty for mounting. I'll take half the blame for mounting, as she's been perfect about the mounting block, but I know she's bad about the "stairs" set up we have so I just avoid it.

Tacked up around 9pm last night (Monday), got on (perfect), and started to circle the indoor.

She wasn't nice for a while. How I'm best describing the feeling was that she felt like she had a ton of energy, and at first decided to use it by bucking. I got the first legitimate kicks and bucks that I have in a WHILE. My solution? Beat the crap out of her for a second (just until she went forward, even the tiniest bit), and carry on my day. It worked. It took about 3 "episodes" to get it figured out, but she got it. After that, we got forward.

She was kind of strong, but for whatever reason, I didn't care last night. We walked, trotted, and cantered, and she was frisky but she had knocked off doing the bad stuff. I didn't like having that bit in her mouth because she was strong and I felt like I had to use it. That's not my intention right now.

We walked, trotted, and cantered, and then moved on to the "course" of poles that were set up. There were 2 lines - a 5 stride (or 6, I can't remember) and a 3 stride, plus 2 diagonal and 2 single straight fences. I started off trotting her over all of them, and then we cantered the singles and diagonals, just meeting them in stride, either straight or on a circle. Somewhere in there on a diagonal she changed her lead, and I was disappointed that I didn't feel it, but I really can not for the life of me think of where she did it! But, alas, all of a sudden we were on the correct lead.

I wanted to try the two related distances with her, because I've only once jumped her down a line that wasn't a gymnastic (not that these were jumps, but they require some planning on her part). At first she wanted to break going into them, or take some funny steps and get weird through them. After a couple of times, though, we got perfect striding through them, and I was happy. She was super jazzed up, which was fun.

I wanted to end the ride on a really relaxed note, so I put her up into a canter and then once we got our stride I loosened my reins, and we went all the way around the ring in a canter to the left. I felt for the first time that she was just listening to my leg and carrying herself, instead of me having to hold her together. Then, going to the right, I started the canter on the relaxed rein and we again went around the ring. As soon as I pulled her up, I hopped off and loosened the girth. She was done after a nice cool shower :)