New Discoveries

Yesterday I went for a light hack with Celtic, trying to keep her routine new and interesting.  What I'm coming to learn is unlike my late gelding, she really does not enjoy ring work, and is EXTREMELY picky about contact on her mouth. 

Ready to go for a ride!

Our last hack ended up being a battle over walking and trotting and I let her just go.  This time, I took the pressure off and let my reins go extremely soft, with a slight loop, and ended up getting a rather nice walk out of her.  So, with this awesome walk, I decided to see if she knew anything about lateral work.  Turns out, she does!  She can do a lovely leg yield and haunches in, just need to watch the over-bending when yielding to the left.  She behaved very well during our hack, only two spin attempts for home, then settled down and walked along like a lady.  A truck drove by us and she stood her ground quivering, but no running no spooking, nothing!  Very happy with her, although this ride takes me to a new question/conundrum. 

If I want a really nice walk, I've only ever gotten it with barely there contact on her mouth and when I take up some contact, she sucks back.  When I ask her to go into the bridle/contact, she starts to dance and jig.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this, but am going to continue riding with soft contact and slowly but surely picking it up every so often.  Does anyone know of other training ways to help this issue?