Diddy Lopes the Slow Lope

Today, Diddy reached deep under his body with his right hind leg, grabbed the ground with his left hind leg, and shifted his weigh off his front end to depart into the loveliest lope he has yet demonstrated, his neck stretched out in front of him, his ears forward, finishing each stride with a flat right knee and a pointed right front toe.

That's the best I can do to describe my great ride this morning. Diddy got a float a couple days ago and this is the first trip to the barn I managed since. He was softer on the bit, suppler on his right side, and more relaxed. Well, it could have been my imagination, but all those things felt worthy of the "er" suffix, and he was certainly more athletic and effortless at the lope today.

Bunny revealed that with warm weather comes laziness, which was a pleasant surprise, since she normally has an energy level that is slightly inappropriate for her Western Pleasure Destiny. She was a little inconsistent in her head carriage but was mostly a good girl, even though we were sharing the arena with a morgan, and she sometimes finds their nervous energy contagious. Her half-pass at the jog is really coming along: now, instead of leading with her shoulder, she will get into a bend on the leading side and look in the direction of motion, and she stays pretty rhythmic in the forward-half pass transition.

For those to whom the barn-talk above was largely meaningless: It was a happy escape this morning: 78 degrees, lesson going on in the arena, Bunny and Diddy on their absolute best behavior and Joey rolling in the grass.

Then I faced about four consecutive hours of research for my Constitutional Law paper. And because the constitution-talk involved in telling that story in any detail would be largely boring, I will forego it.

In the back of my mind, moot court still looms, but I'm happy to have made it as far as we have and I'm trying to force myself to stop going over the outline for my speech and work on the other 14/15 credit hours for a while.