Day 78

Didn't ride Brie or Nina.

I got really frustrated with Harry, so much to the point that I actually gave up and let Paco ride him for me. Let me start from the beginning.
I lunged him, it was good. He lunged very calmly and only ran out a couple of times. With the bit changed, I got on him and rode in the indoor. He was pretty uptight about it so I was easy on the bit rein and focused more on the jaquima rein. It worked pretty well. He was decent on the board and overall pretty good.
Then they wanted me to go outside. Not outside running around, but the arena. I'm still not exactly comfortable with that whole idea yet because I don't trust him and he's really skiddish sometimes, but I went out anyways.
He. Would. Not. Walk.
All I want in my life is a horse that will walk calmly. I have one, Nina, but my brother hogs her.
Harry would not walk if I gave him all the carrots in the world. He kept charging forward and I kept holding him back. I kept trying to make him stop and he'd kind of stop and then tap dance, a sign that I learned from Brie that means he wants to rear, so naturally I got really freaked out a little unnerved. After a bunny hop and a spin cycle, I was done. I couldn't handle that emotionally today, so I asked Paco if he could work Harry a little bit for me. I assumed it was just the bit that he was trying to get used to or even didn't like.
So I watched Paco work Harry for almost an hour. Harry had a good few tries at trying to dump Paco, but Paco is just as stubborn as Harry (which is more stubborn than me in recent years, I've become too tame). Back and forth and back and forth they went. Every time Harry went over the sounding board he tried to dump Paco so Paco kept at him until he went straight.
At the end of the day, Paco told me that I need to work him longer. Lunge for at least a half hour, train for at least an hour, and then ride for another hour. I don't know where I'm going to get all of this time and still be able to ride Brie.
Paco insisted that I get back on Harry, despite the emotional changes I was going through, and so I did. I completely blanked out on all of those equitation rules that have been being drilled into my head every Thursday for the past 5 months and just rode. It was beautiful. I'm sure I was the poster of a disastrous equitation student, but I don't care. It was a good ride. With a great deal of help and work from Paco, I also decided that training is not the place for worrying about how fancy and put together I look, because trainers will look like crap most of the time. Instead of focusing so much on how far I'm keeping my heels down, I need to be focusing on what I need to do to stay on for that ride.

So I now need to wake up even earlier on barn days than I do when I work. Fantastic. As much as I'd love to use my weekend to sleep, I know that this will pay off in the end. Now I just need to work on controlling my emotions.