First Cantering

 

It was a serendipitous first canter - and we had great success!  Lynx and I were out with the dogs riding around the fields and the neighbor's, and we were aggressively followed by one of those horse flies that's gigantic - the ones that are the size of your thumb.  Lynx was upset about it flying around him, so I said let's trot to get away from it.  We trot all the time in the fields, so nothing new there.

As we kept trotting, though, Lynx continued to wring his tail around in a circle, and I figured the bug was still with us.  In an attempt to outrun it, I asked him for a canter.  He has cantered on the lungeline previously, and recognizes a kissing sound as a canter cue, so when I added a little leg and kissed, he picked up the canter right away.  He did a great job and was quite balanced, so we carried on until we were back at the front fence line.  When he came back to the walk he was moving oddly, so I looked back to see the darn bug stuck to him, right next to the base of his tail!  I leaned back and squashed it and then gave Lynx a good scratch.  He was relieved to have the bug finally gone, but he also had figured out cantering under saddle!  

Lynx did so well the first time, that we rode to the back of back field and tried again.  This time he went into his big trot, then picked up the canter going up the hill, and we cantered all the way to the front of that field!  He even gave me a lead change when I shifted my weight around one of the corners.  This guy is a natural.  

Sadly, I managed to forget my gopro in the house, so we were down to the cell phone again.  This smart horse had no trouble, though, since I've spent an inordinate amount of time videoing our rides and talking to the camera while neck reining.  As I described the first couple canters to the video, Lynx knew what I was talking about.  He asked if we could do it one more time, so I agreed.  

 https://youtube.com/shorts/8CNWGJlLDrk?is=pZCM3JrfuCNoQmSe

This was our video capture for the day, with me cantering while neck reining with one hand and holding the phone to video with the other.  At the end of the video he lost his balance since I wasn't able to help him as much while multi-tasking, and broke into the pace.  No big deal, I expect things like that to happen until he is really confident and strong in the canter.  I just brought him back to a walk and reorganized.  He gave me one more good go of cantering to make up for it, and then we walked back to the barn to cool off.  

Tomorrow we'll try the gymnastic with canter strides, and I'll have help so hopefully that will be a great next episode in Lynx's story!