First I'll talk briefly about last night's lesson. To start with something positive: the riding club looked beautiful in the sunset light. The prettiest I've seen it.
Now on to the happenings. Before I even got on Rose, I knew she was different. She was completely distracted, swinging her head around to look at things she hadn't previously cared about. It was hard to get her to stand still at the mounting block and when I finally got on, she was dancing around and just couldn't keep her feet still while we were trying to tighten the girth and adjust my stirrups.
She pranced her way down the track toward the big outdoor arena, looking every which way at once, while I kept on telling her that she was not at the racetrack. Rose looked and acted completely Thoroughbred last night.
In our lesson, she didn't ever really calm down until the last two jumps. Sure, she jumped everything easily, but she was spinning and doing little bucks in between the jumps. It also caused me to pull on her mouth more than I would want to. Definitely NOT normal for Rose. We were bewildered until Pippa suggested that Rose might be in heat, because usually mares go into heat at this time of year. This would explain all her crazy antics last night, so I'm just gonna go with it.
Even though she still has to work on her relaxation while jumping, Rose still amazed me today. She jumped a 2'6"ish oxer with WAY too much room to spare. I can't wait until we're jumping higher. I won't push it of course, but once the jumps get raised I think Rose will pay a bit more attention to them.
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Now onto our lovely day today. First of all, Rose was a completely different horse. I brought her out of the field (getting her apple juice slobber all over my jacket) and immediately took her over to the trailer, where we practised loading a few times. This time I started to ask her to stay standing in the trailer with her head facing forward into the corner while I backed up. This is to teach her not to turn and try to follow me once I've tied her up in the trailer and need to walk away to get the partition locked in. She kind of got the idea, although we'll have to work on it a lot more.
After a few times going in and out of the trailer, I brought her back into the barn, groomed her, and took her to the lunge pen.
First we did the normal groundwork exercises we've been working on with the stick and string. Then I unclipped the lead rope and tried doing the same exercises at liberty. She stayed with me pretty well, but was still showing some distractedness from the night before. After about fifteen minutes of playing around at liberty, I decided we were on good enough terms again to try a little ride.
My whole theme today was to always give Rose the option to leave at any time. Throughout our whole session, she could have left me and gone to eat grass somewhere else in the lunge pen.
First I slung a rope around her neck (planning to ride bridleless today) and then she stood still while I slung the saddle over her back and girthed it up. Then I was even more amazed when she stayed still while I got up into the saddle from the ground. Remember, she has no bridle on, so she could have just walked off while I was getting on. But she didn't, and I gave her tons of praise for it.
We then practiced walking, turning, and halting with the neck rope. After that I asked Rose to move right up close against the fence so I could grab the stick and string that was leaning against it.
I then had a lot of fun kneeling on the saddle while I swung the string around in the air, whacking the ground on either side of Rose and making it into a helicopter propeller over her head. I made sure to get lots of whooshing sounds out of it. She stood still throughout all of this, and I moved around a lot so that she would get used to riders legs and arms everywhere.
I then tried something that was probably taking it a bit too far but I don't regret it. I tried sitting on Rose backwards. She was okay with it at first, but once she felt my legs squeeze her from a new position, she got a bit weirded out and started walking. Which threw me off balance so I had to put my hands on her bum to steady myself, which she thought even weirder so she started trotting. I just slid off her at that point because I could tell she would start cantering if I didn't get off. It was all good and I landed on my side. I laughed because as soon as I fell off, Rose slammed on the breaks, spun around to face me, and put her head down. She looked at me like she was saying, "Oh my gosh mom, I have no idea what happened there but I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry". She's so funny and sweet sometimes.
I got back on her because I didn't want to end the session with me falling off, and we practiced a bit more in the lunge pen. Then I went to get her bridle and put it on and we went for a short little trail ride. She was very agreeable and didn't "suggest" anything about turning around the whole time.
I'd say we both had a lot of fun today!
P.S: Also I can't believe I've forgot to say this, but last Friday Rose got her first ever pair of shoes! She's now got two nice shiny new metal shoes on her front feet, and she's adjusted to them well. Rose has amazing feet and could easily go barefoot her whole life, but since she's competing and will be jumping more, I don't want her feet to start hurting and then her losing confidence over jumps. Also because we're taking her someplace very rocky over the summer so she'll need shoes for that.