Days 230 & 231

Saturday
I started off with Brie again and was determined to have as nice of a ride this week as I did last week. It was nice enough out, so I went into the outdoor arena. They did some renovations to the outdoor last weekend. In the outdoor, we only had a sound board  going along the length of one of the walls before. Now, we have a pole in the middle of the board, along with a pad of cement shaped in a circle with a diameter of about 20 feet. This is supposed to be used to longe horses. Don't even get me started on it. There are also two poles off to the side for figure 8s and three long wooden mini-fences in another spot. These mini-fences are supposed to be used for serpentines. I saw them as a double-use for cavaletti. So I started Brie off in the outdoor and after I had her longe, I wanted to see if she would go over the cavaletti. She was a little hesitant, but she made it over them. She was walking over with the front feet and then hopping over with both of her back feet. I wanted her to just walk over with her back feet, so I had her continue. 

Now maybe this was stupid on my part, but these makeshift cavaletti have a trough in them, like for a flower planter. I didn't think that it would pose any problem. But anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and as Brie was finally going to walk over the fence with her back legs, one of them tripped in the trough. It's not a very wide trough, but still. Her eyes widened and she knew that she had gotten a little stuck, but thankfully, as I was going over to pick her foot up and out, she lifted it up calmly and stepped over. Then she snorted and wanted to back up over it and got a little stuck with her front hooves as she tried to stand on it going backwards, but she backed off just fine. After much snorting, I didn't want her to think that it was scary (even though I'm not going to send her over those again until they're filled or fixed), so I had her go over them one last time and she was okay. 

Once that was done, I got on to ride and start out with some wide figure 8s, but she was feeling very stiff, so I decided to let that go and let her loosen up on the rail before I asked her to bend. Usually she likes to charge the outdoor arena, but she was content with a corto before she slowed down to a walk. I only had to check her at the corners to make sure she didn't start into a canter. 

I went in because she was getting pretty hot and find my mom having trouble with Harry. After a couple of laps walking around the arena (a miracle!) on Brie, my mom asks if I would see why he's not cooperating. So I get on, do all my pre-ride checks with him like flexing and wide circles, and go out on the wall asking for a walk (since he was fighting my mom about it). She and I noticed immediately the problem -- he was limping. He was favoring his front right leg and even though I got off and stretched him and checked his hooves for any rocks, he continued to limp, so after a walk around, I got off and bathed him and put on some liniment. Hopefully he will be better tomorrow! Poor Harry.

Sunday
 Starting off with Brie again in the indoor today. She is doing super well. She's responding so nicely to my legs and my seat and I have to wonder if it's a change in her or a change in me that has caused this nice behavior! I know that I certainly have changed in my riding style since the beginning of this journey and gone from wanting to make the horse do what I want no matter what to really trying to build partnerships and find a middle ground when I can't convince the horse that I'm right for a reason. Because of how great she's been the past couple of weeks, I'm seriously thinking of bringing her to the State Fair this year if we can find a space for her in a trailer. I feel like now that I've changed my attitude about riding, I know more how to approach a competition situation in order to ensure that Brie stays calm. Thinking back on how I warmed her up in the past, I know that everything I did (forcing her to walk, letting her gallop to "get it out of her system", making her longe for an hour, attempting to give her Calmex that didn't end up working...) was insanely wrong and I would like to try again and make the experience a great one for both of us, even if we don't win any ribbons. My goal is to make her comfortable in the show environment and even if we end up scratching the class because she isn't calming down, I would rather do it at State Fair because the classes are cheap enough to scratch!


Harry was doing much better today. No signs of limping! He was acting a bit wonky because he didn't want to ride on the rail. I think that his gait was great today and his demeanor was nice too while I was riding. It's hard to judge how he's doing sometimes when I ride him after my mom because by the second rider, he's usually tired or annoyed. Even so, it's good that he's getting two riders again because it's almost the same as going through multiple classes at show, which he definitely needs to do. 


I've also gotten another horse ward. Jane is feeling pretty discouraged about Taco's abilities and he's been a downright brat the past month for her. He does this thing where he sticks his head really far down or flexes it back behind the stirrup and runs to the middle of the arena and stops. So I asked Jane if I could show him at the State Fair. She said yes and that I could ride him whenever I wanted. Today was the first day of preparation. Jane was having a horrible time because Taco was doing his usual tricks. I try to longe him before I ride to see how he's acting and he is absolutely terrible. He's just about as bad as Harry was when we first got him! He has no respect for the human he's working with. I was going to use the carrot stick to help longe him, but I didn't know if he'd be scared of it, so I decided against it. Since trying to longe him was a joke, I did a quick round of the Porcupine Game to try and establish my authority and he was okay with that.


Then I got on him. I wasn't on for two seconds and he pulls me into the middle. My leg is useless against him, he's so strong. I try to get around the arena a couple of times to no avail, so I decide to go out into the round pen. In the round pen, he's just as bad, but has less space to act up in. My mom brings me over a second rein for the barbada and almost immediately he stops trying to pull his head in and spin into the middle of the pen. It takes a long time before he starts listening to me, but when he finally settles down, he walks really nicely. He has a hard time staying in gait because he likes to go into a canter and canters in place. That would be nice for a Trote y Galope class in Puerto Rico or Colombia, but not in the Paso Fino shows in the United States. I have to break him of this habit. I have to check him a lot in order to keep him in gait and it takes a lot of stopping and starting over when he breaks into a canter, but the last couple of laps around the pen are beautiful. He's listening and not breaking and not trying to pull me anymore. I determine because of the stunts he pulled during his ride, he doesn't respect the bit, so I would like to try and change his bit. I'm thinking of the straight bar that Nina had a couple of years ago that made her head set too high up. I think that this might be a good solution to his tendency to always be pulling his head down in an effort to get away from the bit. 

Taco is a highly trained horse, once a National champion, so I definitely think he has seen it all. This is also why I think that getting a bigger bit is the wrong answer to his problems because he is very soft in the mouth. I also think that a harsher noseband is the wrong answer because his nose has been so scarred by different bosals that he won't even care that it's there. I think that possible a braided rawhide barbada might be a good answer, but we can only use the bit rein in shows, so we need to start with the bit. I'm not entirely sure if I'll make it to State Fair with him. It depends on how well he responds to the bar bit and how calm I can get him. It would be nice to go to the show and prove that this old coot can make a comeback, but I would rather have him safe and happy for Jane to ride for her own enjoyment.