Why Not to Give Up

Oh, Tuesday. I had Rebel, we were outside, there was a massive puddle between E and C, and he had decided that it had my name on it.

He was spooking at a teeny tiny one between C and M, and in open order, I kept going back over it, to get him to look at it, ‘It’s just a teeny tiny puddle, dude!’ … with no great success.

He was fighting me for the bit, and when it came to the jumps, I kept him in trot, because we were coming from the A end, and I knew he’d do that dropping-the-shoulder-thing to get me off, and wet.

We managed, although it was a battle after every recovery to get him back on track, to get him back into trot, to get him away from that damned puddle. I lost my balance a fair few times, he refused a fence a split second after I realised he was going to do so [and off I came, but it was dry under the crosspoles] and the whole lesson was a war, but nobody else but me noticed. Well, apart from the falling. [I haven't fallen in ages, and this was a good one, flying right over his head; I still had the reins in my left hand when I landed.]

The turns after the landings were controlled entirely by him, and down went that shoulder, but I did the belly button thing, as scary as it was at the time, and I felt him have to get control of his balance. So score one for me.

I was determined to have him again on Thursday. He’s always better on his own [mostly] and my stubbornness was back.

On the Ground — For Real

So I’d been doing all this stuff — sitting on the edge of my seat on the bus, walking around with my elbows loose yet down, standing with my balance entirely in my pelvis — to help me in the saddle. This is as far as my ‘on the ground’ work has gone.

I’d never lunged — longed? It seems to be one or the other — a horse on a long line before.

Distractinated

ISN’T A WORD, BUT IT IS A STATE OF MIND I’ve gotten a little distracted lately, and have been wallowing in a state of distractination for the last wee while.