WYOMING!

Well, here we are in beautiful Cody, Wyoming to spend a month with Farrah Green at Double Doc Center for Artistic Horsemanship. Me, Mo and Surreal have journeyed here in an epic three day car ride (that thankfully went VERY uneventfully, exactly how you want cross country hauling to go!)
We barely got settled in before jumping back into the car to head to South Dakota with Farrah for two brilliant days of teaching.

We have since returned to the ranch and I have gotten to play with Mo a bunch, building on our collection and practicing for an upcoming dressage show where we will compete in the First level test 2 and Second level test 1 classes. Who knew?! I am pretty excited about how well Mo is doing, and progressing to higher levels of balance and collection - while staying soft and willing. She has such a tendency to get worried and tight, it has always been hard to introduce collection or more challenging exercises without her becoming stressed or worried - especially wearing a bridle!

Surreal has been having a bit of a hard time with separation anxiety, after being in a trailer for three days with Mo. She is getting better slowly, but she still isnt thrilled when she isnt two inches away from Mo. Mo, lucky for me, doesnt notice being away from Surreal, and I think even enjoys the freedom from her hovering.

Today we practiced the first level test, and since Mo was tired from yesterdays great practice I used Surreal to get the test in my memory. It was a really sad attempt at the pattern, but she did accomplish it, if not exactly to the directive of tasks. It was probably the most focused ride I have had on her in a long time - maybe since the fall at the cross country show. Clearly I need to be asking more of her because once she sorted out what we were doing, it was full steam ahead. We even got some decent steering at the canter in the end!

Very happy with both girls today :) Even if Mo was tired, we had some awesome freestyle canter, which is especially amazing to me, as usually when we focus on the finesse riding, our freestyle goes out the window because she gets to worried. So .. YEY!