Day 256

I wish I knew what I was doing wrong and how to fix it.

So, I've started really trying to work on my seat and posture while riding. I had this terrible habit of sticking my butt out when it's supposed to be in, and while it's been proving useful on Brie and she is responding very nicely, Harry is just not having it. He thinks that when I do that, he is supposed to go faster, even when I half halt him. Do I need to just have a bad seat in order for him to perform? I don't think that can be so...

Before we rode, we took them all out in the grass out back to longe and play with them a bit. Mom put Brie on the longe line, the really long one, and had her longe around the field and up and down the hill, working her back legs. Brie was like a pro, she even had this beautiful trot going, which meant she was super relaxed. Harry at first didn't really want to do anything except eat the grass, so I just held up the carrot stick and he wiggled it every time he wanted to stop and eat and he was going nicely. Nina slipped and had this dramatic slow fall onto her butt in a muddy spot, but she was okay. When my mom took Harry to go on the longe line, he was like "Oh my god! What do I do!? I'm free! I'm free! Oh no! Why am I still on this rope?! I want to be freeee!" and she had to end up reeling him in quite a bit...I think we will be practicing in the arena with that one for a while until he gets used to being so far out away from us. Then she tried to get him to longe on the hill and he got mentally stuck trying to come back down, so after much encouragement, he tiptoed back down the hill. While she took Nina to longe on the hill, I took Harry to a less steep part of the hill and had him longe over that and he went okay.

By the time we started riding, it was raining. Thank god the heaters were all installed yesterday so we could ride indoors! I put the rear end collector on Harry today because he's been floating out for a couple of weeks and tried to use the draw reins on him as well. They did make his head set really nice, but I felt like I had no contact with his mouth and couldn't really control his speed. Plus then I realized in my autopilot state that I had put the wrong bit on, which might have added to the unresponsivemess, so I took the draw reins off and switched bits and just kept the rear end collector on. He was still a little fast, and he was a little touchy when I was flexing him before I got on, so while I tried to get him to do nice, big, slow circles, he ended up spiraling into tiny medium speed circles. He must not have been that sore if he spiraled in on his own. Then it started thundering and he got a little spooky, but I was determined to finish my ride. He wasn't too great on the board today, he was a little poopy and I don't know how to get him in that right spot where I can keep my leg on him and not have him take off. It's just really such a puzzle to me why he was so good for that 2-3 month time in the spring and now he's like just confused seeming. Am I trying to change too much with myself and he doesn't know how to accomodate that? All the changes I'm making to my posture, my legs, my hands, they're all supposed to be for the benefit of his comfort. Sitting further back and deeper in the seat, not letting my legs swing out in front of my knees, not letting my hands get really high off of the pommel area...and he just isn't doing too great ever since I started those changes. Brie has been reacting so nicely, but Harry...I don't know. I don't think that I should compromise what is supposed to be good for him, but if he doesn't like it, maybe I should go back to riding more sloppily with him. I hate to go back there, but if he performs better....

In the end, we got a good board and walked and while everyone left and we were still cooling, he was circling around the door trying to get out, so I decided to activate his brain a little by dismounting at the mounting block. He wouldn't stand on the correct side to dismount, and barely wanted to stand for the wrong side to dismount, but he did for a bit, so I got off. They built a new sounding board area, and it has patio blocks, a little fountain, and a little raised deck in between the boards, and my dad was sitting on the deck and I wanted to walk over to him, but Harry didn't want to go. I couldn't tell if he was bothered by the mounting block or the fountain, as the block was in front of the fountain, so I told him if we went by the fountain we could go inside. Well he went there and walked around it and then I said "Okay, one more time" and he looked at me like "you've got to be kidding" and just planted himself in the dirt a foot away from the fountain. So I sat down on the edge of the fountain and told him I wasn't moving until he came over by me. I must have sat there for 20 minutes, and at one point my dad left to go close the arena doors. Harry thought that my dad was going to go and push him from behind to go onto the patio to go by the fountain, so he backed up frantically, but I didn't move from the fountain, just gave him more pisador line, and waited. He took little baby steps towards the patio, and instead of going the close way to get to me, he eventually decided to go all the way around to come by me. Then I told him he was good and we left, much to his relief.

Nina was still pawing at the ground when we were leaving, so I gave her a bit of hay to occupy her until it was dinner time. I hope that she doesn't keep doing that all week, or we'll have a serious problem come the next weekend.