One a day, plus iron

He sort of goes forward. It's just not the right forward. It *feels* like the sort of forward progress that you can have when you're dragging a recalcitrant four year old by one arm and walking resolutely forward in spite of the fact that the boy has just gone wet-noodle limp and is allowing himself to be dragged through the parking lot like a passive resister.

What *should* be happening is that the horse goes cheerfully and lightly forward, in an active and forward marching gait, until otherwise directed. I *should* not have to nudge the horse with my calves for each fucking stride that is resentfully and miserly doled out to me in a demonstration of absolute minimum compliance.

It's frustrating. Yes, we are going forward, for a strict definition of forward. However, it's not really the way things should be. And if I fuck up, even a little, on the nudging-for-each-stride thing, the horse coasts to a stop and stands there until I manage to rouse him from his halted stupor by using enough leg to make my own pony put me the fuck off. Srsly, if I hit Lute or Nicknick or Meatly with that much leg, they'd leap off the ground in offended startlement. They'd be all "WTF?!? Dude! What are you DOING? All you had to do as *ask* and I'd be right there. That amount of leg is TOTALLY OUT OF LINE!" But Cole, he ambles off lethargically.