Hack and Homework

Today was a fun day. Funny and I met up with Sharon and went for a hack with her and Baylor. We started out okay but we headed down towards the green lake. Sharon was in the lead and picked the new little trail that runs kind of below Green lake. There was a dog at the edge of the wooded trail and then with the drainage pipe making noise Funny was starting to feel a bit explosive. Luckily Sharon was okay with us going somewhere else fairly quickly so Funny could chill out. She also let us lead, which helped. After a few minutes Funny took a breath and was pretty darn chill after that. The dog was kind of "above" us and a little scary even though he didn't do anything. 

 

We had a nice hack and avoided the lake because we were in saddles. We ended up in the cross country field and Sharon said she didn't mind if I played a little. So we walked over the ditch. She was a little fussy about it but they still had all the decor and flags set up from the show so it looked different. She did the baby ditch though and was a good girl about it. I was able to get her to walk up the baby bank but she didn't want to go down and was pitching a bit of a tantrum, so I decided not to push it. Then we went to the water complex and she went in and walked around but I couldn't get her to go up or down the bank into the water. ugh. Oh well. I decided that today was not the day to push the issues. We have plenty of time. 

 

We headed back and I told Sharon that I wanted to do a tiny bit of arena work. As we got to the edge of XC we were joined by Pam and Charlie. Funny got a little jazzed up again for some reason and threatened to spook hard once or twice. But we managed to get to the arena. No need to send her forward! Girl was going!  We played around a bit in there but she was pretty amped. Charlie and Pam were in the lower arena and there were a few people in the parking lot, including her friend Baylor. But we managed some slightly frantic homework. After a bit I took a big breath and stopped for a minute. My brain had gotten chaotic too, so.. I took a breath and decided to focus more on the balance and rhythm and... it got a lot better. Still forward but not as frantic feeling. We even cantered again. It's way more unbalanced that the trot, but we'll get there. And when we do, it'll be such a nice canter! I was so tempted to take her back to the lake for a roll as she was sweaty!!! Me too! But... we had a ton to do so we just got rinsed off at the trailer and then headed home. What a good girl overall though!