Thanks for appreciating my pics, y'all, I was afraid after I posted them that they were too image intensive but heck, that's what mods are for, right?

eskielover, I envy you being able to ride dressage. I don't have good coordination or balance and success to me is keeping the horse between me and the ground LOL.

You are so right about horses being true love. Since my life experiences I no longer trust people but I find my horse very consistent and trustworthy. Not that he doesn't have his moods. My horse can be stubborn. When I first got him he didn't want to leave the barn for a ride on the trail and would circle around and we got nowhere. I find patience works better than trying to force horses so I shut the paddock gate to the barn and sat on him while he looked longingly at the barn and never prodded him to go but just waited. After about 10 minutes he let out a big long sigh and I knew he was ready and turned him and never had that problem again.