Days 207 & 208

Saturday

The beautiful weather makes prime picture sessions! We had a little bit of fun with my hat today.

Surprisingly, they all kept it on!

Since it was so beautiful out, I decided that Harry needed some fresh air and we were going to work outside the entire time. He was good longeing again, which is awesome! He was pretty good walking around the outdoor arena too, but once I started to ask him to work, he was all jumpy. Between the wind and seeing everyone else working, he was totally unfocused. After trying to get him to calm down and get his attention for well over an hour, I finally just settled for a semi-calm walk around the arena both ways and called it a day, but not before making him walk up to Gary's house and back to the barn...all by himself. He might have gotten eaten by a caterpillar or something, but he made it!

Sunday

More pictures! No hat today, though.

Decided against riding outdoor first. Before we left, we uncovered our patio furniture from the winter and I brought along a tarp to play with Harry after our ride. Today I wasn't getting much cooperation out of him either, and apparently his head was not set very well, so I got fed up with the rear end collector and bracelets and took them off and just rode and focused on collection. At the end of a very, very long ride, we had a perfect largo. No skipping, no pacing, just a really great largo. I couldn't have been more proud.

After our successful ride, I decided to take out the tarp. I wanted him to walk on it with me on his back rather than getting off and letting him step on it by hand first. He made a lot walks around it, staring at it apprehensively. Then when he started to bend down to sniff it, he was snorting. He let out a really big snort, the tarp moved from his exhale, and he scared himself, jumped up, farted, scared himself again and hopped over about 8 feet, all without me falling off! Haha, it didn't even feel that bad, but Gary was watching and told me to probably try that from the ground first, so I did just because I didn't want him to say something about my "circus antics" in the future. After about 40 minutes of standing around, he finally stepped onto the tarp, scared himself with the rustle, and backed up. At least he stepped on it! I'm glad we made a little progress, he needs to get over himself.

My mom ordered some new supplements and they're supposed to be calming. She got some for Brie and Harry. We'll see if they work at all! Something else I'm concerned with is showing now. It seems that the pleasure horse is being eliminated in the eyes of the judges, or at least, switched with performance. It's very strange. But apparently now performance is being judged on speed while pleasure is being judged on collection...which would make Harry a pleasure horse instead of a performance, which is what I planned on showing him as, and would make Brie and performance horse instead of a pleasure...I want to start working with Brie more and get her ready for show...I can only hope that she'll get with the program and not want to run everyone down in the show ring like the last time I showed her!