The air is thin up here...

"Riding is a quest, not a conquest" (Charles de Kunffy)
"Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily" (Epicurus, 341 BC - 270 BC)

...as my head is up in the skies today :-)
After the racing attempts on Saturday, Fame has worked well the last three days.
Today my instructor Ingrid was here.
After warming up, Fame felt good so we decided to work a bit on half-pass in trot and shoulder-in in canter.
Shoulder-in in trot is starting to come around now, but we have not worked with it in canter and not much with the half-pass either, so it was interesting to see how Fame would handle it.
She is clearly getting stronger, and Ingrid who has been sick for over two months and just came back teaching said she thought Fame looked a year older, which of course was very nice to hear (I instantly turned into the Cheshire cat again).
Now Ingrid is a very nice person who says kind things, so I keep that in mind - but it warms the heart to hear anyway.
The autumn has been tough as the surface has made it difficult to work, and as Ingrid has been absent I've been without someone to help me too.
So it's good to get a confirmation that we're on the right track.

The movements were not perfect, but Fame did a good job and kept the rythm and the contact, which made me happy.
We also did some work with the counter canter, and that worked out well today too. We lack the consistency though; if she gets distracted or a bit tense she is prone to increase the speed.
But we're working on it.
So now it's just to prepare for the downfall. We are having a dressage training in the week-end with two unknown instructors, so I assume the time is right. Huh.