Following the Fair Hill Adventures (hoping to rinse/repeat this week), I rode at home on Saturday. I debated on and off riding as it was super wet out. In the end, I wanted to take advantage of a tired horse from Friday (haha) and figured I could just walk.
Nay was actually great. Other than some carrot stretches, we didn’t actually do any ground work. I just hopped on and off we went. He was good and the ground was actually drier than I expected. We walked and worked on some different things for a while.
And then I decided to trot.
And all hell broke loose.
Sort of.
Kind of.
Right away the groaning and grunting and tantrums started. Because why not?
Did he do anything? Yes and no. He hopped around a little bit and all that got was more trotting (once we halted and backed up). So we trotted. And trotted. And trotted. And trotted. And ran into a tree. And trotted. And trotted.
He was significantly better whenever we trotted over poles because he had to concentrate to go over the poles, but honestly? I’m 95% sure he was attempting 2 things. 1. Attempting to show his displeasure over being asked to work and 2. Trying to scare me to get out of work. I’m 99% sure he was not trying to unseat me because if he wanted to unseat me, he could have actually put effort into getting me off. He didn’t. But, I suspect it was a scare tactic effort of hopping around in hopes he could stand and do nothing.
To the right? Again, same crap. But, the right is less easy for both of us. Same tactics, less smooth. I obviously need to work to the right. Instead of bend, I feel like we’re making right turns. So progress is needed. Poles again are super helpful. So, it’s a work in progress but much progress is needed.
Hopefully one of these days we’ll get to trot on a flat surface. That would be super nice.
Three Chestnuts 
How do you also keep describing my life? lol, right bend requests last night resulted in some shapes that were defenitely not circles and some feelings. I’m using RideIQ at the moment and finding it helpful for keeping me on task and not getting diverted by the feelings (because same also, I feel like she’s learned she can get me to back off, but also she’s not super dedicated to it either) It sounds like you are doing super well!
At least I’m not alone? LOL. Going to the right is HARD. Very hard. And working is hard. Too hard. But eventually we’ll get there. I’ve thought about RideIQ I just don’t want to spend more money right now. One day, maybe.
Ah the explosions to get out of work – aka: working harder to get out of work then if they actually did the work. 🙄 good for you for setting goals and sticking to them.
Horses. I feel you!