Connected, Independent, Confident Problem-solver - I want it all!

This little clip demonstrates so many things I’m looking for in my relationship with my horses! Getting the balance is always the tricky part, but I’m looking for them to be both connected to me AND confidently independent.
That means that we work together really well, but they don’t rely on me to explain everything to them or hold their hoof through everything.
Of course, at the start, we will probably be working much more on one side than the other depending on what each horse needs, but in time I want it to balance out.
I love it when my horses have their own ideas and come up with their own solutions.
If the fence hadn’t been there, I know Heather would have gone the long way around to get to me. Instead, she realised she had to jump the stream and set about figuring that out on her own.
And, of course, some body awareness and gymnastic work comes into this as well. Heather was not the most, errm, light on her feet naturally and we got a few bruised toes at the start. But we’ve done lots of work on building her foot awareness and she’s now so much more agile and confident in tackling obstacles from ditches to slippy banks to pedestals to poles and jumps.