Today was fun! We signed up for the cavaletti clinic with Beth and ended up riding with Kristin and Cherry. Cherry is like... oh, maybe 12.3 hands... and a cute little red roan. She was like Funny's mini me. We got there early intending to do a little hack and Kristin had time too, so she joined us. Cherry hadn't ever been on a trail ride, but she was so good. When she first gone on, Cherry was motoring so we headed out. I offered to let her lead because she was being so fresh, so she did. And then she started to spook at this fallen log and was threatening to spin. Funny just pinned her ears at her and shot her disapproving looks. Ha ha! It was funny. But Cherry got brave and went past it and then once she simmered down, she let Funny lead.
We had a fun hack around and then headed up to the arena to be ready for our ride time. Beth got this great photo!
The exercise she had set up was fun and hard. It was a square of poles, and then 3 trot poles on either side. First we walked through them and then we trotted through them. Then, Beth had us trot into the square, halt, and then trot out. This encouraged them to sit and engage their hocks in and out of the transition. Which was helpful because everyone sort of wants to drag their feet in and out of the halt. So we did that a few times. It was hard. I had to keep the trot small and controlled so that I could get the halt. And I had to keep my core strong because Funny kept trying to pull me forward and down in the transition. It was hard, but we got it. And the trot out of the halt was hard too. So then we added a canter to it. We did the trot, halt, trot, and then came back perpendicular to it and cantered through the square. Then trotted and changed direction and did it again, with the trot and halt. And that's where it unravelled. ;) Funny got a bit excited with the canter and decided the halt was stupid and she wasn't doing it anymore. Well, not true. She would halt, but she would not stand still. So we spent about 6 minutes dancing in the box... pawing, spinning, backing up, threatening to rear, jigging in place... Then we tried it next to the box and she was like "NOPE.. still not gonna stand". So... after a bit of a fight, I got literally like 1 second of standing still so I praised her, released her from the box, and gave her a break. Then we came back and did it again and only the halt part and it was another fight, but we eventually got a split second of standing. So then it was Cherry's turn. And note... for the record.. that she stood perfectly still while Cherry went through it. Ha! So yeah... we tried again but this time we didn't make her stop in the box because we realized that she was just having a tantrum and we were unlikely to win or accomplish anything. Besides we had already insisted. So we trotted through without the halt a few times. And then we trotted through but walked in the square, instead of halting. And then we added the halt but not every time, just... every other or third time. In addition to the halt struggles, we also had some fishtailing. She was anticipating the canter so when we would come out of the box, she would trot the three poles and then swish her butt one way or the other and try to leap into the canter or leap sideways. Girl!! So much sass! And Cherry wasn't much better either. Hee hee. Well, she was more cooperative but back talking the entire time too and not much more ratable in the canter either. Hee hee. Good gravy!
We both ended on good notes though and had fun. It was educational and helpful and Beth had me work on inside leg to outside rein on our turns to the grid, which was helpful. She told me to ignore the fishtailing and just focus on riding straight into the connection. She also said to make sure to keep my outside rein but to not just hang on it. It needed to be alive. And I could half halt each stride in the canter with it as she was getting bigger going into the bounce poles. So... like I mentioned to Beth, while it was a violent failure in the accomplishing and perfecting of the exercise, it was educational and fun still!
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