In the swing of things

Hampton has been doing beautifully under saddle the past few days. Saturday we went on about a 20 minute trail ride and he never spooked or did anything silly. Two cars drove by (thankfully they went slow) and Hampton seemed OK with it all. Our ride today was quite fun - I even tried a little bit of trot lengthening on the diaganol. Although it's note quite strong enough for 1st level - he will easily get there. T-Bone was so frustrating because despite years of exercises, he never got the concept of lengthening his stride. But for Hampton it comes so natural - just lean back, put some leg on and off he goes. If I push too much he gets a little wide behind, but he just needs strength and miles. Nice to know I can add lengthenings to out program now though ... perhaps with some forward and back thrown in.
His canter is also really coming along. The left lead, especially. We made one entire lap around the arena today ... after one failed attempt where he sort of half-heartedly bucked a little and broke into a trot. I shouldn't even use the word buck. It was pretty pathetic - just basically shook his head around. He apparently was having as much fun as I was cantering down the long side. The right lead canter is ... uh, well lets just not talk about it. It needs work. Today I also started trying to teach him some turn on the forehand. He gets it from the ground, but under saddle is a little confusing. He wants to walk foward, which I didn't really want to punish him for. So I had a ground person come to try and help and that went somewhat well. We'll need to continue work on that.
On Wednesday, we have a lesson with my old instructor. So I will have (finally!) a good set of eyes on the ground and some homework to do. I really feel at this point that a realistic goal would be a training level test this fall. So I'm going to start taking regular lessons on him to help make that happen. On Friday, he gets his spring shots and his teeth checked. I think they may be bothering him again (a cap perhaps?). They were done in October, but he's been tossing his head a little on the lunge line lately (but no issues under saddle, weirdly). Also, today when I had finished untacking him - he yawned a few times. This is sort of weird for him, so I watched him to make sure he wasn't maybe a little colicky. Went out to hand graze him, passed that test. Got a good drink of water when I turned him back out. Seemed fine otherwise. But still, another red flag that maybe his teeth hurt. Or, he could have just been "unwinding" from the ride. I don't know. Either way, vet will be out Friday. He's probably get the weekend off because I don't like to ride the day after my horse gets vaccines.
And finally, Hampton gave his first "pony ride" today to my roommate. He was as calm and pleasant as could be. So proud!