Days 262 & 263

Saturday

I just can't figure out why Harry is acting the way he is. He is lazy and doesn't want to gait anymore. I tried everything I could think of today trying to get him to gait. He'll gait in a circle, but then when we get on the wall, he goes into pacing. He even paced over the board. Does he need a rest? Or does he need more work? I can't help him if he's bored with the arena, as it's going to get very cold this week and I'm guessing it will stay that way until the end of winter, and we won't be going outside as often. Any suggestions?

Sunday

My mom worked with Harry today. She put the draw reins on him and while it made him set his head, she said that he was still fighting and wanting to take off and not wanting to gait. She said he would gait for a little while and then go into pacing. I don't know what his deal is. He didn't pace over the board today, so that was good. Maybe we should put the bell boots back on him.

I rode Brie today and she was absolutely magnificent. It's rides like today that make me think she still has it in her to compete. She was totally responsive, had beautiful boards, and had perfect speeds at the largo and the corto. We even WALKED once we were done working, and for quite some time too, I might add, without stirrups and reins being loose. If she started to drift off of the wall I just needed to nudge her with my calf and she floated right back over. She was beyond good today, I'm so happy with her.

Meanwhile, Harry bit me! That snot! He bit my finger as I was petting his face. I was in too much shock to do anything, but I flicked him on the nose after I realized that he actually bit me! It wasn't very hard, thank God, but it still hurt! He even tore a little skin! He has got to learn manners and respect. Maybe that will fix him up in the arena as well.

Day 259

I was all excited to ride Harry after a stressful week at school, but when we got out there, as I was brushing him, I noticed he was bleeding on his back right hock. After cleaning it up, the swelling went down to just a large bump. After inspecting his stall, since he hasn't been outside, I could only find a couple of places where there were flat screws a little bit out, but they were dull...I could only guess that he got mad at his neighbor Dora (she's in heat) and kicked and scraped his leg during the kick. After we cleaned him up, I brought him in the arena to longe a little bit. He walked, although at one point on a reverse he started to speed up a little, but he started limping pretty badly, so he went back down to a walk. After a good amount of walking just to get the blood flowing, I figured "Heck, I might as well play some games with him" since I couldn't ride him. We played the Friendly Game, during which I was super happy because he finally let me swing the rope over his back. We played a little Yo-Yo game and the Porcupine game in one direction, because the other direction he looked like he was dragging his bad leg, so I stopped. He was really responsive in the direction he was good at though! Then I just walked backwards and he followed me across the soundboard at a walk, then I put him in to rest.

I rode Brie and my mom rode Nina. Brie was so snotty today! She tried to bite Sadie and Harry as they walked by her on the cross tie! But you couldn't tell that from her ride. She was a fantastic ride today. Very calm, very responsive. Most of the time I just let her go where she wanted though, since I wasn't in the mood for working very hard. We let Nina and Brie chase each other around the arena, then they followed each other in circles, all while we did nothing! It was quite cute.

Mom pointed out that Brie is not as collected as she used to be and I had noticed that. I think it's just because we've been focusing in Harry and Nina since they show and kind of letting Brie just do whatever. We're going to put the rear end collector on her next weekend, maybe the draw reins. I am not a fan of those reins!

Days 196 & 197

Saturday

You know how things start out cute and then become really annoying?
Well, a couple of weeks back, Harry started pulling all of our zippers on our coats. He would unzip them and we thought it was the cutest thing. This has now evolved into biting whenever he feels like it and it has to stop. He was awful longeing today, but probably the worst part was when he would come in real close to me, take a bite of my jacket and then run back out! We have to start getting after him for the zipper thing now and prevent this from going any further.

So since my mom has been saying that Harry responds better when weight is more back, I tried that today. He wasn't responding very well at all and kept tap dancing. I was trying my hardest to keep my weight back, but he kept throwing me forward and when I started to grip on him with my lower legs to keep balanced he got really upset and started speeding up, so I finally just settled back into a more forward weight and he was much more responsive. Still fast, but more gaited. His board was very powerful and loud. I hope he keeps it up that way! Now only to work on his manners...

Sunday

I rode Brie today and let my mom have Harry since I rode him yesterday. Today just felt like it wasn't going to be a very good day for me and it was threatening to remain that way. Brie was fighting the bit the entire time and kept trying to run out on me when I started trying to use a light leg contact. I just kept getting aggravated and she just kept going faster until finally I just stopped, removed contact, and rode normally. I was ready to start crying when I decided I had better get off. I keep getting upset because I just have these grand visions of her as a dressage horse, but clearly I don't know how to train her to be one and when I get some tidbit of advice and it doesn't work, I just feel awful about it...I guess I can't really blame myself since I don't know anything about dressage really...so maybe we'll just focus on being Paso Finos...we could always do trail class, I'm sure that desensitizing is a fantastic thing for Brie to learn to keep her brain from turning to mush.

On a non-horsey related note, we went sledding today at the barn! Trust me when I tell you there's no sledding like tractor sledding! And by that I mean being pulled on a sled by a tractor. It's the most fun thing ever! I had such a blast, even though I couldn't feel my hands for a solid 10 minutes afterwards and fell off the sled multiple times going down hills. It was totally worth it though!