Yes, you must trot

I rode Callie at my barn for the first time yesterday. It wasn't a terribly long ride, but it was a start!

I lunged her first, and she looked a tad looser than the day before, I rather like her trot, it has a lot of natural elasticity to it. Once she gets fit and really loosens up I can see it being pretty nice. I then got on her and did some bending back and forth, she's actually rather supple laterally, I was a little surprised, it's the longitudinal suppleness and fitness that she's lacking at the moment.

Then I asked for the trot. This is how it went:

Me: Callie, please trot
Callie: no....
Me: Callie, trot.
Callie: No.
Me: Trot, now!
Callie: *puts ears back and slows down* NO!
Me: *change in tactic* Ok, do a walking turn on the forehand, get that hind end moving up under you, now GO trot!
Callie: noo---wait, oh. ok...

She is not a mare who will take any sort of heel cue, no matter how small. She wants squeezes and seat/upper leg cues. So went spent the next 5-10 mins doing walk-trot-walk-trot and so on until she quietly picked up the trot without any objection. I then called it good. :)

Other than that, she was great, she doesn't have a spook in her, the soccer ball in the middle of the arena that I completely forgot about until she politely stepped over it on the lunge-- it didn't phase her. Compared to Pie, she's downright lazy! I don't think I'd really realized how hot Pie actually is, I was riding Buddy boy for a long time and he was more sensitive than Pie so I had labeled Pie "lazy", lol, oh how wrong I was! It's been sooo long since I'd ridden those little lazy ponies that I'd forgotten what it's like, now I get on Callie and it's a completelly different feel. I'm sure though that she'll perk up considerably once she builds some muscle.

Today is looking to be warm (relatively), sunny, and windy... good day for a ride?