I love my horse

I have learned to appreciate my horses' size and lack of finesse. Here are just a very few of the reasons I love my Dixie:

1. She may have an attitude but she doesn't do anything violent
2. She secretly loves being ridden
3. She wiggles her nose every time I put sunscreen on it
4. She has the best dapples ever
5. When being ridden she eventually realizes that she is not the boss and gets into the swing of things
6. She is awesome down trail and in the arena (the majority of the time)
7. She is just plain adorable!

So Mare(my best friend) and I got to take a lesson from Nettie(my sister) today after work. We rode English which in my 15yrs of riding have only ridden twice(well three times now). We worked on walking,trotting, and cantering our circles, half-halts, and some "small" jumps. On the way up to the outdoor arena Dixie was being a total jerk, playing with the bit, rushing, and not stopping when I asked her to; very frustrating. Finally I got off and made her stand nicely, which she did of course, then got back on and had Mare and Missy go in front of us(didn't help, Dix nearly plowed Miss over). So in my head I thought "oh, great this ride is going to suck", but once we got into the arena and started walking a bit she calmed down. 

Then Net came up and our lesson began.

Lets just say it was awesome and we all had a great time.  Once Dixie realized that we were indeed working not playing she started to get into it. We posting trotted A LOT on our circle and worked on our leg position. Then, we did some cantering and asking for it correctly and balancing ourselves and our horses. We talked about half-halts and practiced them a ton!! Then we started working on small jumps which at first Dixie just trotted over and gave me the "really mom why jump when I can still trot over them". Then Net started putting them up a little,then a little more,and then some more and Dixie ACTUALLY jumped!!! I was so proud of her! I may have done a terrible job but Dix was amazing, I wish I had pictures to post but Mare and I were both riding so next time we work on that we'll take pictures of each other so we can show you guys our amazing horses!!!