Miss Dee's New Mouth

Wow. That about sums up my ride today. Wow.
Dee got her teeth done yesterday. When the dentist opened her mouth, the first thing she said was "Oh dear". The left side had big, sharp hooks that had caused some cuts on her cheeks, her fronts were wearing at a diagonal angle and most of the molars on the right side weren't even touching. Poor miss mare!
The dentist got right down to work after giving dee some relaxation juice and within about 40 minutes, my horse had a new, improved mouth.
Another perk of getting her teeth done? I got to pull her whole mane and give her a bridle path before the sedative wore off!

Today, I was figuring that I would only do a little bit with her, since she had a lot of work done, but it didn't quite work out that way. The first thing I noticed was that when I put the bridle on, she didn't fuss with the bit at ALL. When I got on, she seemed pretty happy, but it wasn't until we started trotting that I really saw the difference. Now, she's been good lately, but she's still pretty unsteady in the bride, going up and down constantly, tilting her head, that sort of thing... no real consistency. Well, today's magic word seemed to be 'steady', because she hardly fussed at all. Sure, the transitions are still a little fussy, and the canter has a ways to go before it's round, but the trot work was BRILLIANT. She was SO steady, and really just seemed SO much happier and capable. I feel like now we've really turned a corner and are ready to start accomplishing lots of great things.