Riding Diary: 28

Jingle cooling down in his Weatherbeeta cooler.

By the way - mini product review, I bought this cooler for him before I actually bought him (crazy horse mom, I know), and clearly I envisioned him much bigger than he was, so it's 2 sizes too big. BUT, this is Weatherbeeta's combo fleece/cooler and it's AWESOME. Highly recommend it - super soft, really good material, high quality, and I think I got it off Chick's for a wicked deal - like $40 or something? Maybe even less.

Bit: Shank bit with roller

Time: 1.5 hr

Ride: Jingle was being such a majestic ponyboy for me this last week that I expected some great things from this ride. Welllll.... we did so-so. Remember what I said about putting expectations on my lessons?  It never works out the way you want it too.

We started off with our usual warmup, Jingle was lookin' fly with his nice composed, quiet, slow jog. Atta boy! He is continuing to stop better and better at the walk, trot, and jog, which i'm awesome! Steps toward success!

Then we started to lope, Jingle just gets so hot and then starts to become a gigantic pissy pants. I don't work him very hard when I ride him alone, mostly because I never lope him, as I'm still uneasy about my leads/doing something wrong while trying to teach him to learn how to properly lope. So, our rides are usually blissful and, well, pretty easy and un-sweaty. Then my lessons come and he's asked to really work and he does a big "Hell no! Go away!" This generally features running amuck, being sassy, stopping, refusing to slow down, etc. It is something we are working through, and I just need to grow a backbone and atleast "work" my horse once a week. (I don't think he needs to be worked every time I ride him, in fact, I think our calm slow days are good for both of us, but like... I need to be able to lope my own horse... confidence, where art thou?) 

However, during our lesson, his left-lead is starting to really come along, I can lope him on a much longer rein, he's starting to slow down and not just zoom around like a cracked out race-horse. So, I'm hoping that now that one side of his loping is coming along really well, his other side (right lead) will just sort of click one day and fall into place because at the moment, the right lead is still a struggle. Picture this ever-stunning scenario, of my horse just trotting around like a chicken with his head cut off, whilst I try to ask him calm and collectedly for the right lead. When that doesn't work I attempt to ask with a bit of encouragement from a spur (my trainer has me wear really mild english spurs). He'll generally pick up the wrong lead, or if he does pick up the right one, I'll lose him in a minute. When that doesn't work I ask with a little bump of my crop, that tends to work for a bit, but honestly I become a totally uncoordinated mess with a fricken crop in my hand, and then I lose him... my fault ponyboy. However, we're working on just getting the right lead out of him and then quitting, moving to the left, and ending on a positive note.

It'll click, I know it will. We're getting there! Both my trainer and the mom of a girl who rides in my lesson said we were doing really well, and coming along nicely. yay. Another lady commented how Jingle has cute markings. (... are you insinuating his attitude isn't so cute? hahaaha)

For Next Time: keep on keepin' on until my horse can lope a circle on his right lead.