Custom blog header by Bre!
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In Loving Memory...
~ Gogo Fatale ~


6/2/01 - 10/11/11
~ Forever the Marest of Them All ~
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Thursday, February 4, 2010

I CAN HAS CANTER!?

WE DID IT. WE CANTERED!

My original plan was to give it one more week of trotting for 20 minutes before starting our 5 minutes of canterwork next Thursday, but realistically I realized that there was no way we were going to be able to maintain a full five minutes of canter at this point. Just like when we started our trotwork, I began a few days early just to test out how she felt, just a time or two around the ring. So today, when everything felt right under saddle, I gave it a try. She had spent the morning doing little mini-aerials in her paddock (much to my dismay), so I expected her to be hot and spooky under saddle. She must have gotten her little itch out though in turnout, because she was quite quiet under saddle.

She felt weak. Like she wanted to buck and play and throw her head around and be silly but she didn't have the strength to. She was bopping up and down on both ends so it was a little bit of an ugly ride on my part, but Rome was not built in a day... everybody's gotta start somewhere!




And of course, when I say quiet under saddle, I mean not completely. There was a ray of sunlight that came in the door at the scary end of the arena that was VERY scary, so she of course had to terrify one of our other boarders by trotting past her, seeing the ray of light in front of her that then fell ON her while she was passing it, assuming that the ray of light was EVIL and made of poison, and doing an amazingly athletic courbette that looked exactly like this but even bigger. Well, god forbid the killer ray of sunlight get us, right..?




It's a loooooooooooooooong road ahead until we're back to this again....



................. but we're on our way. And no more incidents like the one in the video on course. Ever. Again.




15 comments:

Funder said...

CONGRATS! I'm so happy for you both! :D

Albigears said...

Yay! Gogo's goin' again!

manymisadventures said...

GO YOU! That's so exciting! And you're right about how nice her trot has been going - she looks really nice and smooth and even.

Her little buck/plunge/hop things are cute. I imagine some of her more, uh, 'enthusiastic' movements aren't so cute from the saddle though!

sally said...

How awesome to see you and Gogo taking that next step forward .....onwards and upwards ...yahoo

Golden the Pony Girl said...

Looking good! Nice and forward and loose! Gogo has so much spunk and spirit! I love it.

Austen said...

She's looking so good, and so lucky to have you taking such careful care of her!

You have more bravery than me sit an "athletic courbette" like hers must have been ... Then again, my TB did an amazing courbette/360 the other day when he saw a bale of hay in the field. They are nuts!

Val said...

Best. Blog. Title. Ever.
(just too funny)
Gogo looks smooth and beautiful. You are doing an amazing bringing her back to work. I am learning a lot from your blog. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Have you considered that Gogo is perhaps a.....


.....vampire?!

Seriously, congrats.

Alanna M said...

She looks great!

Andrea said...

Hahaha funny you should mention she's a vampire because.....
http://eventing-a-gogo.blogspot.com/2009/02/picture-of-day_28.html

Anonymous said...

YAY! CONGRATS!

SmartAlex said...

WoooHoooo!

gina said...

Congrats on having three gears again. Your canter looked good for the first time after so long. Hooray.

gina said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dressager said...

Yay canter!!!!