Do horses get dizzy???

I was out of town this past weekend; had to go to St. Louis for a professional conference and got home at midnight on Saturday! So I had arranged with my trainer to ride Secret on Saturday so she wouldn't just sit. The report was: "Had a really productive ride. She was a little stiff in the beginning, but was noticeably better at the end. I rode her in the outdoor arena, did canter-trot and trot-canter transitions, and worked on a circle almost the whole time."

The agreement that I had with my trainer is that she will ride her for the next three Saturdays (while I'm out of town) and I will ride at least once (preferably twice) throughout the week. Thus today was my "in-between" ride. We started out in the big outdoor arena just warming up, walk-trot transitions, and some circles near the gate. Then we moved into the indoor arena, this is my security blanket, and worked on more trot circles -- I'm surprised she's not dizzy! While still not perfect, they are MUCH better. She is still kinda stiff and doesn't want to bend, but is much more responsive to leg... especially the inside leg. This is really useful because she has the attention span of a gnat in the arena and now whenever she's looking at what's going on in the pasture instead of paying attention to me the "half-halt and inside leg" philosophy is WAY more effective than it used to be.

We ended working on trot-canter transitions. I don't know if its all the circles or maybe my trainer made a major breakthrough when I was gone, but SHE was SO much better!!! We started on her bad side, the left. She was still very much on the front end and bouncy but started to relax and calm down after the first few transitions. Then we went to her good side, the right, and it was amazing!!! There was very little bounce, it was like she collected and got her fabulous slow canter back. AND the "whoa" off of the seat was also fabulous.

To top it all off, I actually got her to stand up on the "elephant box" with me in the saddle!!!

It was the best way to end the day and I am ECSTATIC with the progress that we've made. The best decision I've made in the last year was to just relax and stop trying to push myself and Secret to do something fancy. I'm back to having fun and looking forward to my rides. I also REALLY REALLY LOVE my horse again.