How easy is it to make me happy?

Very easy, apparently.



Just look at my pretty boy. So relaxed, so calm and at ease. It has come recently, with ground work and a lot of carrots. I had the hardest time to get him to go away from me :) This is a really good picture IMO, the sky is so incredibly blue and clear and the stomach feeling I get from looking at it makes me all fuzzy.



I also got this shot. A quiet, contemplating horse. Interested in what I am doing, alert, but still resting.

Today I borrowed a saddle because I need a new one. It was very interesting how I rode much better in it. I concentrated much better, and when trotting I could post much better, and sitting was much easier. I did not once encounter the "Foot through stirrup" problem once, which has been my constant enemy for a long time. No bracing against the cantle. I sat the trot, relaxed, draping my leg. It was amazing. I got approving looks, which made me incredibly happy. Kimber rode Cargo at the canter, and he looked so very very good. She did a really good job at it. I wanted to do it myself, but we were 6 people in the arena, two of them newbies, three of them doing dressage work, and I just could not see myself trying to navigate my "little" boy around all of them. It was hard enough at the trot. When he was finished he was quite tired, so he got a little sun while drying off, and a warm blanket while I ate cake *yumm*. After one hour he was already dry again, munching his hay. Umpf, the BO wants to limit how much I give him because he is very much afraid of colics. I am, too. An empty stomach that produces gallons of acid while the horse has nothing to munch on except for straw that can block his intestines.. Not my horse. I know plenty of people who give this type of hay ad libitum, or 30-40 pounds a day. Cargo "only" gets 20 pounds, thereabout, and he is a big horse after all. The BO hands out 2-4 pounds, he told me himself. I dont like that. All my googling and asking knowledgeable people has shown that I am not doing anything wrong. Sure, if it is very wet I will not give him as much, but right now it is nice and he can get as much as he wants.