Monday, May 25, 2009

All excited to see Josie today to make sure she is okay. My plan was to see how she was, ride and then lunge her over a little cross rail. She seemed fine until we got up to the updoor. She was nervous, distracted and wouldn't listen. It doesn't help when I get mad. I tried slowing my post and she just kept rat-a-tatting along. I should have gotten off and lunged her instead of trying to ride through it. I tried to the right she was good to the left she bad. I think she was a little sore considering what we went through yesterday. She is also in season and a bit of a wench. I tried going a long and doing our smaller circles - nope she just kept blowing me off. I finally gave up and put her on the lunge where she proceeded to canter and canter and canter.

After she settled down and would listen when i asked for trot and canter, I set up the bloks with poles on the ground and placed a pole nine feet in front of the soon to be jump. She went through nicely, figuring out where to put her feet. I lunged her both directions a few times then set up a small X. Boy did she look beautiful taking it. My little girl is a jumper! She was confident and forward. I put her through a couple times both ways. I set the bloks up so the jump was higher. Hmmmmm should have accounted for that when I had her go through. The darn lunge line caught the blok (I really was trying to keep it from being too low) and it took it down. This scared her just a little. So I asked her to go through again and she had her first refusal. I am thinking to myself that I am an idiot and just ruined my horse. So I rebuild but leave the block on my side down lower to avoid repeated my past performance. I got her thinking forward and clucked her through while hold the lunge whip and keeping her in the V. She went through twice, each time getting more confident so I quit that and took her inside to establish decent work undersaddle before quitting for the day.

We unsaddled, got the dogs and went for a shower and hand grazing to make amends. She loves me again. I can only hope for a better ride tomorrow. I feel horrible and really need to work on my patience and learn to recognize when not to try to ride through it if I am not relaxed and am feeling I am losing my patience.

Next weekend I hope to put her through the jumps again. I am going to work on the 101 Jumping exercises which will give us a good program to follow to make sure we are ready. I want her to think jumps are not big deal so when I am astride they are no big deal.