Knocking on Second's Door

Folks, Mort and I made up for our poor ride on Thursday with an awesome ride yesterday. I'd been wanting to hit a couple of second level items all last week, but it never worked out due to weather and the lesson. We got a couple of easy rides in instead of what I wanted. Easy rides aren't the worst for him mentally though, so whatever. If we have a couple rides where it's basically a glorified warm-up we're no worse off for it. (This doesn't really include the lesson and him getting away with being lazy for a whole ride.) We started off as we always do with several laps on the long rein. I stopped him from my seat a couple times. He is improving with these but he's still not perfect. He yielded off both of my legs well. We moved into trot on the loose rein. He thought about being lazy for a bit but worked out of it. I did some walk/trot transitions. We did some big changes of direction. I started to pick him up and do some smaller circles. I did a couple canter transitions. He was working into connection and we were starting to rock-and-roll. I decided to jump right in after a short walk break. I picked him up and asked for a walk/canter transition. He stepped right up, only a little off balance and against the hand. I told him what a good boy he was and we cantered a circle. I asked for a canter/walk and he only had a small moment of thinking trot before dropping to walk for me. I asked for another and it was just about perfect for where we are now. He stayed connected and stepped right into it for me. He got much praise. I should have stopped with that, but I am the worst and didn't. I asked for another and he ugly trotted. I brought him back down to walk and he was tense, so I did some figure eights and such at the walk to get his topline back. Once I had him back I asked for another and got one that was prompt but similar to the first. I still told him what a good boy he was and did call it quits on that one. I just did two the other direction and they were both decent, if a bit unbalanced and stiff. I then worked on a couple canter/trot/canter on the other lead and he was good. I need to remember to actually ride those few strides of trot and not just sit and pray for it to work out. After some canter work he got another walk break. By this point Mort and I were really clicking. He was jazzed and ready to go but still listening to half-halts and moving off my leg. I played with a couple of really good (for him) medium trots across the diagonal. I didn't even have to push and ask, I just allowed him to take me. It was a ton of fun, especially considering how much he's struggled with these in the past. I wanted to touch on the shoulder-in, across the arena, shoulder-in from 2-1. Mort killed it. It was easy and basically seamless. I (thankfully) learned my lesson with the canter transitions earlier and only asked for it once. At this point, I was running of out things to work on from 2-1. So, I decided to work on my sitting trot for more than just a few moments. Holy poop I am out of shape. I think Mort could theoretically get through 2-1 but I'm not sure I could at this point. We'll see how the next week goes. I'm heavily leaning toward just showing him first, but there is a 10% chance I might try second. I doubt it. We did some trot/halt/trot transitions that he also nailed. We ended the ride with more walk work. I do have to give credit to the instructor from last week with my head tilt. I'm definitely thinking about it not tilting right for now and it is helping. This was the best ride that Mort and I have had in a long while and it's not like we've been short on good rides lately. I can really feel second level and I'm happy that my boy is back in shape and we're ready to start stepping it all up again.