Day 185

Harry worked so much better today! I started out longeing him right from the get go with the carrot stick and using his jaquima instead of the bosal band, just to see how he would react and if he would try to fishtail. He was so calm! He only got a little nervous and didn't really fishtail, more like stop and look at me when another rider went over the sound board, but he was a very good boy longeing today.

Getting on, we worked circles and flexed like yesterday, except today I had a couple of goals. One, I wanted to work only on the bit rein once we were done flexing, and two, I wanted to stop trying to do everything for him and let him figure it out for himself. After reading a bit of Casey's blog yesterday, I realized how is Harry going to perform better if we're always trying to tell him exactly what to do and do everything for him, like he's incapable of figuring it out himself? I'm proud to say that we accomplished both of those goals! I never had to pick up the second rein the entire time we rode and while we started off a little bumpy, Harry worked things out for himself beautifully.

When we first started out, he was tap dancing and skipping and speeding around the corners, and apparently he wasn't looking too show-y according to my mom. But as we worked and as I gave him more freedom to find his place in what I wanted, an energetic and collected corto, he grew right into the part! We even went for a largo that was surprisingly well collected! Even my mom complimented me on what I did with him when she got on him to ride afterwards. I'm so proud of Harry and proud of myself for letting my overbearing tendencies go and letting him figure it out for himself, because he's really a smart boy! I hope that today was an indicator of things to come!

Then afterwards, I got on Brie and we had some fun for a short ride. Going from Harry to Brie is like night and day! Maybe part of it is going from a Passier saddle to a Wintec, but she's like a mountain compared to Harry, and they're only really a hand's height of difference! She wanted to run run run, but I calmed her down and kept her back in a manageable corto. We ended nicely and they got another bath! I thought that the last of them would come last weekend, but it was warm enough in the barn to get them wet. I really do think that this week we need to prepare some vinegar to spray them with to clean them this weekend, since it's expected to snow this week!