First fall

After owning Cupid for 9 months, I had my first fall off him this weekend. He has been a little naughty lately. I'm not sure why, but our trainer thinks we're asking him to work harder and he's trying to figure out how to get out of it! I used to canter him on a loose rein and had to encourage him to keep going, but now that I've been riding with more contact he either doesn't like/isn't use to it, or is remembering his racehorse past and thinks I want him to run. I'm not sure. I was trying to canter him on a 20 meter circle, but he got way too quick and I couldn't keep him on the circle, and he just got faster. I was able to pull him up, get him to relax a little bit, and then when I asked for the canter again the same thing happened. Only this time, I'm not sure exactly it happened really fast but he threw in some sort of little buck or hop and I went flying off! He kept racing around the outside of the arena, I got back up and stood in front of Cupid and asked him to whoa and he stopped in front of me. There was another rider in the ring too but she was stopped in the middle talking to her trainer when it happened. I'm okay, mostly just mad at myself for letting it happen and not stopping him right away. When he starts running I kind of just stay up in two point instead of sitting back down. Sometimes I'm just afraid if I try to circle him he will lose his balance, but I need to be tougher. I got back on Cupid after, and kept working. We did a little canter each direction without incident, but he never fully relaxed. He was tense and whinnied several times. I hope this is just a temporary phase and I get my easy going horse back soon!

Next day both of us were a little sore, Cupid looked a little short on his left hind again so I let him take it a little easy. Lunged him in side reins (they are getting shorter now), W/T/C both directions. I got on him for just 15 minutes, walk/trot only.

Here he is looking sweet and innocent!