After feeling for years that my personal riding skill had just plateaued, it was exhilarating to find that my jumping has taken a huge step forward thanks to lessons with K.

And while Arwen and I haven’t lessoned with anyone since November, today it seems that our months and months of picking away at the stressage is beginning to pay off, too.

Because Arwen was the first horse I schooled, it follows that her schooling has quite a few holes in it. I think schooling for shows didn’t help that too much – we focused mostly on doing certain test movements well for the better half of last year. While it solidified what we already knew, it didn’t leave much time for fixing and learning new stuff. Now, with no dressage being done for January and February, we had the freedom to work on whatever we needed to on the day.

And that has translated into feeling competent at most of the Elementary movements. That much I knew before today. But on Thursday Rain came and took some video of us for the first time in a while, and I am gawping at how well this horse can suddenly canter.

Seems like even without lessons, early mornings, late nights and sweaty numnahs still achieve something.

Glory to the King.