When you are on a great horse, you have the best seat you will ever have.

At its finest, rider and horse are joined not by tack, but by trust. Each is totally reliant upon the other. Each is the selfless guardian of the other's very well-being.

Author Unknown

Wow. What a day. What a ride. What a horse.

We stopped by the barn this morning for a few minutes to check on the ponies with my brother, then came back with my brother and a friend of his who wanted to see the horses. We got there and talked to A about Spirit some. He has to have shoes, no doubt. Ugh.

Pony :( :(

 Anyways, we walked way out to find Red. Ended up seeing him running up the trails, playing with Bay, as we got back. :P Led him to the round pen and hopped on. Just like that. Tackless. I don't know what came over me. My brother, his friend, mom and A just all watched me like, "Well let's see how this goes!" and Red. Oh, Red. 

Every day I seem to love my horse more and today was no different. 

That horse did better tackless than he has done with tons of tack in a long time. Get this. FOUR people were in the small round pen with us. Normally, Red insists on following people and not listening to me! Especially bareback. He knows I have less control bareback. But today, he listened so well. He never tried to follow. He listened perfectly. He listened to my hand cues. Responded to leg pressure. I even tackled that awful, fast trot of his with no hands. Yeah, no clue what came over me.

omy word what is my face doing?? ALSO just to let y'all know, I didn't keep both hands on his mane like that, lol, I was trying to get a better grip :))

 I kind of let a sigh of relief out. Not going to make a fool out of myself in front of tons of people-including other barn friends that weren't in the round pen!!-and I'm not going to get bucked off. Even with the flies bugging him, he did perfect save for a random kick at a fly. But if I can handle his gait, I can handle a kick. :))

Sleepy horsey!!

Used my spurs again today, barely. As always he really didn't need them other than once when he tried to be stubborn for two seconds. 

This picture is my favorite. :O

He's finally becoming that really versatile horse! Calm when I need him to be, fast when I ask for it. There's no such thing as a perfect horse, but I think he's pretty close.

So I was doing an "angry face" at a horse fly when mom took this, LOL!!

I rode around for quite a few minutes like this, trotting around, having a blast and my grip wasn't super tight on his mane like I thought it would be lol!!

 

 After this, mom went to go grab the hack and put it on him. I trotted/jogged around the pen for a few minutes because he started acting a bit more excited with that on, lol. Then, I literally begged my brother, not a horse guy, to get on bareback. :D With the help of his friend, I succeeded! Little sister power! :D He rode around for like, five minutes and got off. :)) Red did great with him though! His friend rode, too. :) Fun stuff! 

So, in short, my horse is amazing. I had a random bout of courage. Twas' a good day!