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| very angry i took the cat out of his mouth to snuggle. the injustices that go on in this horse's life, let me tell you. |
Bobby came out of his stall bright and chipper, clearly holding no grudge against our battle yesterday. He leaned into his face brushies, he mugged for cookies, and he dove his face into the bridle.
Once we set off, he was loose and forward. I warmed him up for a good long while in a relaxed long and low frame and let him cruise around stretching out. In the canter he was feeling super strong, and I channeled the forward energy over the big X I had set up. I wanted to work on staying out of the saddle all the way to the jump, not chickening out and letting my butt touch down a few strides out.
It was a complete success over the X, and I was actually enjoying jumping around and wrangling Bobby after the fence. He was on fire, but it wasn't a crazy fire. He was just feeling really good, and he was right there when I asked him to slow it down a titch but keep the hind end firing.
Over the 2'6" oxer, I did chicken out at the last second and sat back a bit and let my butt brush the saddle. BM said that was okay though, as long as I'm not plonking down and holding with my seat. I don't remember jumping ever feeling like so much work before, and it's kind of not work I look forward to anymore. But we'll get to that post eventually.
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| a variation of the wall smashing is turning in to the middle of the ring completely. variety is the spice of life, bobby says. |
I had my pockets weighted down with cookies for when I moved on to asking for the SI. I'm very liberal with my bribery, and every time we got through a SI, I halted and stuffed one into his face. The first couple run-throughs were a bit tense, but once the cookies started flowing, he just went about his business without fuss.
WHY IT TOOK TWO HOURS TO DO THAT YESTERDAY WHEN IT TOOK FIFTEEN SECONDS TODAY IS BEYOND ME.
Obviously I'm very glad my tactic worked, but hot damn, Bobby. Does it really have to be so difficult?
As he was being oh so cordial, I worked through parts of 2-3 for the first time since...well, basically since we last showed. SI, 10m circle, haunches-in, halt, rein back, turn on the haunches, free walk, and repeat. We had zero issues, and he even deigned to give me some really good TOH. I have a feeling those are going to be on the list of drag out fights one of these days. Does he know how to do them? Absolutely. Does he like doing them? Not one bit.
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| i love a good, majestic flowing butt cape |
We finished with a left lead canter. He keeps wanted to bulge to the outside this direction, and the first time on our circle he did just that and smacked his foot right into a ground pole that was most definitely not in my chosen path. That seemed to wake him up to maybe listening to my outside leg trying to keep him straight, and we had better success after that.
The goal was to work on opening up his stride, and I was really pleased that he went right to it. He stayed light and he stayed in rhythm. There's no way we're near a real extended canter yet, but it's turned into a much, much better medium than we had last year.
I'm so nervous he's not going to be able to keep his shit together in the ring when I ask for all these things--he had a melt down over something in almost every single test last year--but that's why I'm trying to up the pressure and really fuck with his brain now. If I can get him to settle the tantrums down when I'm shoving things down his throat in a tougher fashion than what he's going to face in a test, I'm hoping by the time he gets in the ring a test will seem like a cake walk.
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| gotta up that mental toughness, old mule ears. |
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