Secret's Photos

As promised, here are some photos of Secret's progress. 

This is Secret in fall of 2010 at the BLM finals.  This photo is a bit out of focus, but you can see how she wants to bunch her muscles at the base of her neck, which closes her throatlatch.  Compare the size of her stride, the height of her croup, and the bend in the joints of the hind leg that is on the ground in this photo to the photo below.

This is Secret this past June at Windy Hollow Hunt. You can clearly see how much her trot stride has grown, and how much more power is coming from her hind legs.  She was checking out a horse grazing outside of the arena, which gave us great ears but a slightly short neck, but even with the neck a touch short, it is longer coming out of her withers than in the photo above. That bit of bracing is gone.  (thanks for the photo, Stacy!). 

This photo was taken at the ESDCTA Memorial Day show in 2011, during a 2nd level test. You can see her wonderful, uphill canter. When we stayed home, I was most worried about improving the trot, but check out the next shot to see how her canter developed. 

As you can see, her canter is still wonderfully  uphill, but now she is moving through her whole body and really opening up her frame.  She has a ton of power now.

Yea, I included this shot just because I like it. In this moment, I have just half-halted to set up the medium canter. Check out that engagement -- those hind legs are loaded with power.  She is such an amazing horse, I am so lucky to get to ride her.