goldilocks....

So last friday I watched a cool vid of a horse that looked completely transformed, due to the fact that his rider was riding his hindlegs well up under him, and I resolved to do this with Trudi on Saturday (as opposed to letting her hindlegs trail- which I never really MEAN to do, but I'm not always really on the ball about this). And lo, what a difference. That odd "my horse is taller, and shorter from nose to tail" feeling came about, and things went really well, untill Trudi said "Uh, I'm not used to working like this, and I can't do it anymore." She got crooked and I tried to push her through it, so she gave a tiny little half-rear pivot thing where she pulled her front end about 8 inches off the ground and turned about 45 degrees before setting it back down. I was still being dense and thought she was just being a snot, so we tried a couple more canter transitions- awful- running, falling on the forehand, and wrong lead. I was really irritated but I brought her back down to a walk and thought about things, and it finally dawned on me that I was demanding far more of her than I had before and she was TIRED, and she just couldn't do it. So we changed directions and walked on a long rein untill she rested a little- put her back together and asked for the canter- bang- perfect- changed directions, asked again- bang, perfect. Called it a day.
Sunday I went a little easier on her, and we had a really good ride beginning to end- had like 7 nice canter transitions, all with another horse in the arena (though he was nicely tucked away into a corner, and happens to be her neighbor so I think that helped). If I can keep doing things like that, she'll get strong enough to do more and more. It's funny because I think I'm usually more of a pushover and don't ask my horse to push the envelope- but I guess there's always the temptation to overdo it when you find something cool...