Think, when we speak of horses, that you see them

Because it's been years since anyone succeeded in taking a photo of Grayson in which he did not look like devilspawn, ears pinned and mouth snarling and eyes glowing uncanny green. If photos are pictures of the soul, though, that's pretty accurate. Unclean! Unclean! The leopard-print app marks of the beast!

I brought Grayson around and out to his halter with a cube of alfalfa, which depending on your school of training is either rewarding bad behavior or a sensible way to keep the horse happy. I don't care which it is, I'm too damn old to be proving my foolhardiness by attempting to wrassle or sweet-talk him out of his stall. While I was grooming him ("How did you get mud on your eyelids, you glaikit creature?"), I discovered that he loves having his forehead and the skin over his eyes rubbed. Nothing loath to do something that might him in a better humor, I went to town. He leaned into the brush...but kept his ears flattened even while he closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy. He is determinedly sulky, this one. He did his level best to bite and kick as I cinched him up and got ready to put foot to stirrup. Once I'd gotten into the saddle, with Pat keeping him from twisting to kick the mounting block, he even tried to kick her, keeping it up until I pulled him into a series of backing steps. Having to back up seems to keep his brain occupied. Another useful thing to file away in the dossier labeled "Horses, fucking bastards among."

And then, as has become standard, he turned into a pretty good partner. We managed a slogging canter ("Come ON, you bugger, come on, sweet boy, canter UP ah finally"), and he pricked his ears at a fox as we passed the door, but his bending and crossing were lovely and he picked up his knees nicely as we went over cavaletti. At the end of the class, Pat showed me how to pick him up onto the bit, and after a few minutes of twiddling the reins I found myself looking at a glossy arch of neck and holding the lightest contact on his mouth. Satori. Doing it on a regular basis will be a real trick, but it's good to know that we can do it at all.

The jumping class that follows our dressage lesson took Grayson, so I didn't have to clean him up and was free to go a-visiting to my crew of favorites. I also got to chat a little more with Pat, who gave me some positive feedback and generally made me feel as though there's hope for my riding.

And in other news completely, covetousness is a sin in most major religions. Don't care. Want Bat Smaks!