Been riding Keno a lot. It's a little disheartening how much he wants to ignore my cues to trot. I just need to be a little stronger. But I mean- our transitions from trot-canter? Beautiful, even when I don't ask for them. We tried doing twenty-meter circle figure eights, with a simple trot change in the middle. He got too hyped up by this. His left lead, formerly his weak one, is definitely his strong lead now. Which, hooray conditioning, I guess. But he very much thinks- oh she's telling me to trot, but we're going to canter SOON so I should do it RIGHT NOW. I'm not sure if he's doing it to be annoying or he's just excited about it. His right lead is definitely getting more relaxed. I think his issue is that when we canter to the right in the arena, we end up cantering directly towards the gate, zomg. Which Keno apparently can't handle, these days.

Today we played around with trot/canter. He got really fed up and angry at me, and I did it right back at him. His canter really is coming along, when he wants it to. We also played with simple changes, walk-canter and canter-walk. Those are... great, actually. He wants to jig a little as we approach the canter point, which is more or less resolved by mixing up where I actually ask him to canter. What we tried to do was pick up a right lead at B (oh, and come to think of it, I believe that B is back in the arena! Weird.), make a reasonably large circle/oval, turn at E and walk. Walk to B, pick up a left lead canter. Repeat. I lean forward for those and I shouldn't, but they were nice for us. Cari decided she wanted to canter Xsarena in a circle that intersected us just about perfectly, which was irritating.

As a side note, one of the interesting results of the show was that I hadn't realized how long it had been since I had ridden with a bunch of people in an arena. Time was, I'd have been fine with about eight to ten horses in Robert's arena (maybe more if there were two groups using half the ring each), but I had been finding it difficult to deal with even two others. The show was easy because everyone was going the same direction once there were 4+ of us, usually no weird circles, and maybe two horses lunging on the inside. It's tough even riding with just Cari, because she has no issues with cantering in front of you cantering, and then going down to a walk, leaving you to either slam on the brakes or yank your horse into a turn. Or you'll be on a circle and she'll cut in front of you. I do my best not to cut people off. I don't know if she doesn't think about it, thinks she's leaving more room than she is, or doesn't care.

So, yes, trot and canter transitions. Or more accurately, canter once and bring him back to trot for the rest of the session. But I love his canter. Sigh.

As for the big news of the day, I walked through the back field around 11 and looked for signs of where Robert was- out with Jerry or already back. I saw Jerry standing by the culvert and figured they were done and Robert was showing him the trees he'd planted. Walked past the barn- yup, everyone's doors were closed. Up to the hay barn, I noticed Imp's halter and lead. Weird, they should be on Imp's door. But, hey, whatever, and I continued to dump my stuff at the trailer, then go back and find Robert. I peered through the arena just in time to see him lift half a shaft out of the stream. Um... half a shaft is not good.

I approached and saw that they were both completely soaked, and the cart had taken a pretty good beating. Robert, of course, was grinning like he always does. My urge to freak out was successfully repressed by his expectant glee of said freakout. So I just asked if everyone was okay, he said yes. Apparently Imp had started backing up over the culvert, gone crooked and gotten his right wheel off of it, and they all just flipped sideways into the creek. No one was hurt. Robert lay on Imp's head to keep him from moving, and kept his nose out of the water while Jerry unhitched. I assembled tack and cart and returned it to the barn while the two guys went to get warm.

Imp was pretty upset. I hung out with him for a few minutes. Normally he turns his head to look at you when you open his door, but he had sideways ears and wouldn't move his head. He was standing at the back of his stall, looking out towards the creek. So I walked over to him and leaned against the wall to wait. He was soaked and muddy. After a minute or so he stretched his nose out to my hand, and let me pet his muzzle. He still looked worried- and angry, like he wasn't sure what the right answer was, but this whole business might have been my fault. He wouldn't let me touch the rest of his head. When I started scratching his neck, he started shaking really badly- tremors through his whole body. I don't think of Imp as a cuddly horse, but he wanted someone to be there. Eventually his airplane ears went more to flat-back and made some faces at me, so I (made him behave) and left him to think about it. He was spookier than usual whenever I walked by, but by feeding time seemed more or less himself.

Tillie the filly had some attitude today. I made her wait for her feed, which she was shocked by. When I went in her stall to close her door, she hopped like she was about to kick me. I chased her into a corner and made her stand there, then ran my hands over her. She was upset about that but knew better than to do anything. Then she put some serious angry ears on when I was going to leave, so I roundpenned her around her stall, for lack of a better word- put pressure on her to move one way, then had her change directions- at a walk, obviously, but a "yeah, that was a smart idea" sort of discipline. Put my hands on her again, which she was displeased by, but again, she's not dumb. Just a baby.

I got tired of Lady looking moldy and curried her. I think I got approximately a medium sized cat out of it. She looks substantially better. I've upgraded her to merely motheaten. She'd look better if she didn't have a strawberry roan winter coat and chestnut summer coat. Papillon was REALLY upset that Lady was gone. Lady tried to bite her as soon as we returned. Mares.