Couldn't be more proud...

Today's freestyle ride was one of the calmest we've ever had. We started off really slow, doing full zone 1 turns with hindquarters not moving. Then, sideways in walk and trot. Once Juliano delivered a precise sideways in trot we could move on to canter. As we were both very calm and focused on one another we could do graceful walk to canter transitions and after that come back to a walk. After few circles of walk-canter-walk I asked Juliano to come back to a walk after 4 strides of canter and we made it! I was super excited and proud. For some horses it is easy to come back to a walk but for us it was always THE most difficult thing - to stop. We never made it in 10 strides let alone 4. It was always: canter, please come back to a walk, 30 strides later and we are still cantering or doing a choppy trot. It was an amazing feeling when Juliano just calmly glided back to a walk.