Got there at 10, hung out with Robert for a while since it has been a fairly long time since I actually talked to him. I guess I've been in a funk lately? Who knows. Robert had decided to spend the day cleaning up the feed table, so I helped him move it and put some stuff away.

Suited myself up in riding gear. My iPod was dead, and usually the the only way I go out in the field is with said iPod, so I can distract myself from worrying with music. But, after little-blond-pony-inspired boldness, I grabbed my cell phone and a Keno. He was desperately happy to be out until he saw the saddle. We headed out and walked around once on a long rein. He was very unhappy over the hose monster, displeased that things had changed in the neighbor's yard with respect to the well drilling equipment, and could have cared less about the haymonster this time.

After one time around, I gathered my reins and asked for a trot. He gave me a nice one and gave me his head, but around the curves and then on the stretch towards home he got rushy and headflippy and disobedient. I sighed and kept him moving. When we trotted past the culvert he threw his shoulder out a bit, but then gave me a nice trot again. He kept it up on the path towards home the second time, I guess he figured out that going towards home doesn't mean going home.

At this point, he was going nicely, we were on the stretch next to the neighbors' driveway, I thought what the hell and asked for a canter. Not the lead I asked for, but calm and responsive. About halfway down the stretch it was still going well so I asked for a hand gallop. Wheee! He came back down when I asked him to, and got a little jiggy at the very beginning but walked through the curves and down the stretch at a nice forward loose rein walk. Good times.

I also took Niki out. She was pretty hyper but behaved mostly. Bella was grazing right next to the arena (which I hate) and she just gave that mare a bit of a wider berth. She walked over the little crossrail Gillian set up, and then trotted over it on the lunge. Not pretty, but calm! Under saddle she chilled out a lot, eventually. We posted the trot relatively calmly and slow. We were much better with steering for the most part, and when Star bolted right at us, we were unhappy but did not do more than dance to the side a bit (which meant we didn't get hit, I'm okay with this). We did canter! It wasn't pretty, and she ran into it, but there wasn't anything more than some humping her back up.