What I thought I was doing was bringing my outside leg back, and just not picking her up with my inside seat bone. What I was actually doing was pulling my knees up which pulled both seat bones out of the saddle leaving Sonata to say, "Ok, dude. Seriously. WTF do you want!? How about this: I'm going to trot faster, because that sure as hell doesn't mean canter." Step one is admitting that you have a problem. ;) I started really concentrating on making sure my leg was long before I asked, and things went better. My brain knows exactly what my legs need to do, but my muscles aren't necessarily always obeying it. I was also reminded of a few stretches that will help with that. I'll make sure to do them during my warmups from this point forward. Once I felt that I was getting the canter on a more consistent basis, I picked up the lance and took a few runs at the quintain. Well, I tried to, at any rate. With the lance in my hand, my canter transition went to hell again, so I decided to simplify. I put the lance back, and grabbed the dressage crop to hold in my right hand, with the reins in my left. I finished off my ride working toward getting a consistent canter toward the quintain. Sonata was pretty tired by that point, so I got a few good ones, and left it at that. All in all, it was a good ride. It wasn't necessarily the prettiest, but I feel like I did make some genuine progress.
As a random sidenote, (well, maybe not too random, since it is horse related) after my ride I went truck shopping. A friend of mine works at a local Ford dealership, and he called to let me know that they just got in an 06 F-250 King Ranch edition, fully loaded with just 27k miles on it. I went to look at it, and it is indeed tricked out, and a very pretty truck, but when I drove it, while it was very quiet, I found its handling to be a bit clumsy for my tastes. I'm not sure if it was just that particular truck, or indicative of Fords in general. To contrast, I've driven two Chevy Silverados from two different model years, and I found them both to be very comfortable, and to have significantly better handling than the Ford. Plus, Chevy's Allison transmission is awesome, so that's another point in their favor. On the way home from the Ford dealership, I passed by a Dodge dealership, and since I had nowhere I needed to be, I decided to pull in and see if I could get behind the wheel of a Ram, in the interest of doing due diligence. (Ok, yes, fine. I like driving trucks. ;)) I must say that I didn't like the Dodge at all. (Sorry, Popeye.) The interior isn't as nice as Chevy or Ford's, the brakes are way too sensitive, and there was far too much play in the steering for my tastes. I've also heard that Dodge diesels are notorious for needing a new transmission after about 100k miles. Since a diesel isn't really considered "broken in" until at least 150k miles, that seems an unacceptable lifetime. I suppose if I really wanted to be through, I should go to a GMC dealer and drive a Sierra. But really, I already have. I'll just pretend that the Silverados I drove had a GMC badge on them, and call it good.
After I got home from the various dealers, Jan and I discussed our current options at length, and we've come to the conclusion to put the truck search on ice for a while. Waiting will enable us to be able to spend more money, and also to get a better deal, because honestly, now isn't exactly the greatest time to be buying a new vehicle. We'll likely pick things up in September or October, when the 10s are coming out, but there's still 09s left in stock. But, that's enough about that, this is a horse blog, so I should get back to horses. Or, on second thought, since it's almost 0100, and I'm riding tomorrow morning, it might make some sense to get some sleep. I think I'll do that.
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