A perfect afternoon

Best afternoon in a long time! Still hot here, so I climbed in my hammock in the shade of the deck yesterday afternoon, and woke up two hours later. Around 5:30, I saddled Clancy to go for a ride. She did not want to stand still for mounting again, so this time I used my mounting step and worked on that. She moves her hip away, so I used my stock stick to reach over and tap her hip over- but I ended having to step down and move her hip from the ground a number of times, always giving her the chance first to do it from my preferred position of being on the step. She eventually got it, and then we had to work on her standing still for mounting, as she has been allowed to move off right away previous to me owning her. That only took a minute though. Over all about 10 minutes of work.

We headed down the road to the west, with fields of barley on the left, heading out nicely. There is a road- more like a dirt trail- that cuts through the middle of these fields, and we headed that way.

I was happy to find that they have extended this road, we were able to go all the way back beyond those trees and off to the right there was another big field that had been cut, so we rode the perimeter of that too.

I was pretty happy with this, our first trail ride. There was no silliness; one small moment when she saw something unexpected and her "spook" was to slam both front feet to a stop and give it a hard look- and then on we went. A group of Eurasian Collared Doves flew up within a few feet, and she just carried on.
There were times when she thought she should trot, and I tried bringing her back to a walk just using my energy, thinking downward transition, and sometimes it worked and sometimes I had to do a one rein check. When I wanted her to trot, I tried first using my energy without secondary cues, and again, sometimes it worked and sometimes I had to cluck her up. This is only the third time I have ridden her, so I think it portends well for our relationship. I can already see the areas I want to work on with her, other than mounting; I'd like her to be a little softer in the face- she does need her teeth done, and we can work on getting her using her body better for collection.
One thing I will have to do with her is some desensitizing, she has a couple of spots that she doesn't like being touched, probably cellular memory from her ribs being out. A little TTouch should help that.
Over all- I'm kinda pleased with miss Clancy!
One more thing- when I took the saddle off, I didn't find any dry pressure spots. Nice and even sweat marks so I am super happy about that as I love my old saddle. I had it custom made in 1998 and it has been on a lot of horses, and it fits Clancy just right!