Time: 1 hr.
Ride: I'm stumbling over my words for this post in my head already, so you know it's going to be a good one. Anyways, basically I had one of those rides where I was already tired and emotional from other activities, and ended up, afterwards, looking at my beautiful, but green, horse and thinking, "maybe I will never be a good enough rider for you." It's honestly so frustrating, and I know I shouldn't have such a negative attitude already - it's only been a month of lessons (so, like 3 or 4), but I just cant help go to that place every once and awhile. I just worry that he'll never excel, or succeed, with me as his rider, and I'll never get better, because I don't have a horse that can teach me - I'm trying to teach him, and sometimes it just feels like a big fumbly mess. You know? Sigh... Another ranch horse came home, and I know he'll excel, because of how good of a rider his new owner is, and then there's me. It just stings.
So on that super positive note, the lesson was alright. I hadn't ridden Jingle in a week because I was so busy, however his farrier finally came out (yay!) and he had his feet done on Thursday. He did really well, he stood better than last time, and he's really only going to get better with his feet. I notice know how easy he stands for me when I pick out his feet, brush his legs off, etc. (Still working on those hinds though...). His farrier commented that he falls heel first, and very flat footed, he also has a slightly clubbed left-front foot, so we're working on correctively shoeing to sort out some of those conformation-errors.
My lesson started off with a posting-trot, he was zooming around, and my trainer made me slow my posting down and work better on keeping him slow, but more alive at the same time. Sometimes if I slow him down, he almost forgets what we're doing. Then we worked on the jog, and then we came to a small circle and worked on the jog and the lope. The entire ride Jingle was tossing his head, and just being a sassy pissy pants, basically being a noodle-horse, with attitude. At the lope he would do well for awhile, but needed a lot of leg and rein to keep his lope up, instead of breaking down, but then he started getting frustrated and half running off on me, head-tossing the entire time. Finally, our ride ended with about 20 minutes of jogging a small circle until he finally would stop and relax into it - he never really did. By this point I was exhausted, and my heads were drenched in sweat from the reins. We then stood for about 10 minutes until he'd relax and just chill out. It's annoying because I KNOW he can jog better than that, he actually has a nice little jog, but when we work in the small circle, he just gets so frustrated, and annoyed, and I don't have the timing, or really know what to do properly, to correct it. Also, I really need to work on my vocal cues - my trainer said I'm not being strong enough in how I cue him, for example, apparently I say, "jooooogggg" all honey-boo-boo-princess-horse-face style instead of "JOG", as in "quit that you pain in the ass".
Anyways, the dentist is conveniently coming out today to check some horses that another girl brought home from the sale of the ranch (!!! yay, some of them came home to my barn!) so i'm going to get him to look at Jingle's mouth again. He has his issues, which I thought were remedied in July when another Vet/Dentist was out to do him, but maybe not. His head shaking really does seem like a pain response to his mouth, and if not, i'm wondering if it's a learned response from previous pain. If he clears his dental exam, I might switch up bits, I was thinking of putting him in an O-ring, basic, basic snaffle, but I know he despises the nutcracker effect from bits I've used on him previously (albeit, harsher bits, when he wasn't mine and I was told what to ride him in). Right now he's in a D-ring three piece dog-bone with a copper roller, so maybe the roller is too much, he is in a noseband, so he can't play with it if he tried. So maybe a really mild french link? I don't know.
Blech, anyways, as you can tell... it was just one of those rides.
For Next Time: Work on my verbal cues, and don't let pissy-pants get away with things as much.
I hate those frustrating lessons, but sometimes that is the one you learn the most from. My Razz horse made me frustrated sooo many times, but then she would be so awesome it was like she was fighting it and when she finally gave in (for lack of a better term) she really accepted what I was telling her was the right choice.
ReplyDeleteI would try a new bit on him, maybe one that is more curved in the middle maybe he needs more tongue room, so many different things it can be for head tossing. Might just be trying to get you to quit, but might as well rule out pain first.