Riding

So I managed to get another ride in today. It was more of a get on and mosey along kind of day.  D mentioned that he was happy I kept riding yesterday, I asked why and he replied "well Oscar was really hot for him yesterday" and then we all almost fell over laughing.  He is such a different horse than Lucas that even on his 'hot' days hes still extremely easy going.

We didn't do too much today, just lunged him for 2 minutes, and then we rode around some cones, and over the poles and bridge that are still set up for trail.  We are still figuring each other out, my balance still isn't great, I'm still 'wiggly' when I get a response that I wasn't expecting from Oscar.  I did shorten my struipps  a hole to see if that helps some (and my new boots do not have a crepe soles) and it does a bit.  I'm still very much in the 'trying to stay on' phase more than the 'fix the horse' stage.  I am so glad to have Oscar to ride though this phase, he is very forgiving of my mistakes, and is happy to go to work every time he sees me.

I'm off for my IV tomorrow and I go back to work tomorrow as well!  Not looking foreword to opening up my work email in the morning!

You want to act like a 2yo you can get treated like a 2 yo!

And that is how things went tonight. Lucas went to boot camp last night but it got called off on account to thunder and lightning. C and D kicked us out of the barn so that they could turn off the electricity!

I lunged Lucas hard tonight, and in his bridle which I hardly ever do (and tied him around just a bit). Lucas started off being a dink but D talked me and Lucas out of it and got us working again and trotting forward. Hes acting like a baby so hes going to be treated like a baby, hard work and lots of bending. It basically comes down to the fact that Lucas needed his ass kicked again, and more than likely will need it kicked again tomorrow. Its a pain, but we seem to have this continuing circle. Ride him and beat him up for about 5 rides, ease off some, have 2 months or so of good riding, bad behaviour starts escalating, beat him up again.

My friend seems to think there are a couple of reasons for it. If the work is too easy he would like to have even easier work, so he acts up trying to get his way. And he only knew discipline until he came to us. If he is in a hard, almost abusive work, he doesn't need to think, just react to what his rider tells him to do. I think with me hes thinking way too much on our everyday ride.

I rode!

For like 5 minutes :) Lucas was extremely good though. I haven't ridden him since the middle of November and he wasn't so good then. I think that I have more problems with him going back to work than he does. I really lost my confidence about 4 years ago. Nothing specific that I can name, but just a general loss of feeling in control when on horseback. Im getting it back bit by bit, but its days like this when I really notice it. Now that Ive had a good ride on him I should be good to go. Its just that first ride back after an extended time off that makes my legs turn to jello.

So I lunged him for about 5 minutes (we kept one of the lesson kids and horses in the ring that Lucas likes to give me a 'comfort' horse as he acts better the more horses that are in the ring) and we didn't want to drive him, so then I got on and he was keeping his head a bit high, but very listening very well. One of the other lady's bought in her two year old to lunge a bit and one of the other kids brought in her horse to do showmanship, so he really relaxed then (well maybe I did!!!) We just walked around doing some small 2 tracking exercises to keep his brain on me while I got my sea legs then we trotted both directions practicing some transactions. Then I got off! The BO was willing to get on him for me for a couple of min before I did, but we've really starting working as a team when we are driving and I wanted to keep that. It felt a lot this summer like we were fighting each other most of the time, but these couple of months that I haven't been able to ride him our trust has increased a whole bunch. Im not just focusing on the under saddle work, but the entire horse.