Day 5 Happy loping

Ponied out in another direction this morning. Taffy was feeling frisky. She did relax and walk well. The past two days she has jogged to catch up every time she lagged behind by two feet (head by Honey's hip rather than by my leg). Big noisy garbage truck came by, she reacted but did not overreact. I like that about her horsenality... Left brain extrovert. We'll have to teach her some "tricks"...
On the way home we took the wash. Deep small gravel. We tried it with the boots and pads off. Walk- smooth. Trot- smooth. Long trot- even and still no head bob. She offered to lope, so we joined her and had a short but pleasant lope down the wash. Yipeeee! We came back to the walk easily, without fussing. I appreciate her not getting hyper from loping. She had a few small sweat streaks across her loins when we got home. First time I've seen any sweat on her! No nervous sweating from her.

She is learning to keep her head down more to see where her feet are going. She even negotiated some rocks over gravel without boots. I left the boots and pads off the rest of the way home and she stumbled less than the horse I was riding. In fact, she didn't stumble at all.