Always Different

There's always something different every time you ride a horse...even the same horse. Three rides ago we were lousy at the trot-great cantering. The next time, I decided to work on our trot. This time the trot was great, yet I was flopping around like a fish at the canter. Harley, however, was wonderful, knowing what I wanted and doing it, even while I was messing up. Then there was today. It started when Harley started messing around at the mounting block. Oh, it's going to be one of those days. I got on and we started to walk...as if we were in a funeral, it's going to be one of those days. We went outside and started to trot. Harley decided to have a coughing fit, mayhaps just trying to get me off balance. We continued to trot-he continued to goof around. I could hear him flapping his lip, he'd break for no reason, generally be a pain. We had been at it for about 10 minutes when I said, out loud, "Forget it-canter!" He immediately stepped into the correct lead and cantered beautifully. From then on, he listened perfectly. We cantered courses, changing leads-he got the correct one every time. He wasn't breaking either...til I started getting tired and my heels started coming up. He, however, was wonderful. So...I started out wanting to clobber him, but he redeemed himself and I again had a most wonderful horse.