As we always try do at the end of each spring semester and the start of each autumn semester, we exchanged the arena for a little trek in the nearby woods today. Of course, one of the horses half threw a shoe, so we made it a short version and got back to finish up with a few minutes of riding in the paddock. Murphy enjoyed the outdoors part quite a lot (the little pig tries to snatch up food even when he’s trotting, and ends up slapping branches in my face), and then promptly fell asleep once we got into the paddock. However, I wasn’t about to have any of that, and firmly told him to get working. Which he did, offering me some rather nice trot and some decent canter. I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next dressage lesson: its all well and good to warm the horse up properly, but most of the time I ask for way too little until too late into the lesson.