Ha! She's no wicked.... but she is naughty!
Today we had lessons but since I haven't ridden or lunged Lyric yet since her injections, I opted to skip on that. And Dan's still walking only. And I had a doctors appt I had to leave for at 2:15 pm, so... It was just Funny. I was almost tempted to just take her and hack her because I did tell her we'd have some down time. BUT... I know Jacel is going to be out of commission in mid January, so... I decided that Funny and I would have to suck it up and do a flat lesson. I bribed her with the giantest biggest carrots I've ever seen! A client had a bag of them and offered to let me take some, so I did.
We got on about 20 minutes early so I just walked her up and down the hills in the pasture as our warm up. It was cold but warming up nicely and in the sun, it was quite pleasant. We had a powwow with the other two and she's definitely in heat. I could have thought she had just come out of heat, but... she was squealing at Dan. So then we headed to the arena and Jacel got there. We chatted a bit and I told her how awesome Funny was at the show. And then, we went to work.
I picked up the trot and Funny was SPICY! She was like "nope, you said vacation".... and went full sass mode. She was quick and runny and tossing her head and kicking out at my leg. She even did her prop, stop, and buck and rear thing, albeit half heartedly compared to that one very bad time. So, maybe she really is in heat. I did mention that I was worried about her saddle, but... as the lesson went on, she settled and was quite lovely. So, because of the behavior, Jacel told me to ride smarter... and avoid a fight. Ask her to circle, ask her to leg yield, ask her to move her haunches out. Ride her off my seat and thigh and avoid getting in her face. That doesn't mean throw her away... it just means.. use my leg and seat and core first and only resort to hand if she really tells me to feck off. And it worked. She was still hot and sassy but she was engaged and using herself better at least. Then she got mad about that and tried to pop into the canter. So Jacel told me to let her canter. But she wasn't allowed to just run around.. she had to canter small circles or canter shoulder in/leg yielding, and... it worked. I didn't fight her.. I just told her she could do what she wanted but she had to use herself while doing it. And she eventually settled into a nice lovely canter. Then when she decided it was hard work and she wasn't getting what she wanted, so came down to the trot. I let her and then asked for a nice trot with some lateral tendencies... shoulder in, haunches out... And that got us a nice trot too. It took a minute, and we had to resort to circles and lateral work and there were a few more canters in between, but eventually she gave us a nice lovely trot and then eventually asked if she could walk. Sure thing doll. You've been working hard. But then she immediately wanted to stretch down, so I asked for at least 10 steps of good walk. And she got mad, and went behind the vertical, so I asked for shoulder in, and.. she settled into a nice walk with her poll the highest point (or at least not behind the vertical). And then I let her stretch. We gave her a good walk break.
Then we went the other way. And there was a bit of a tantrum again. Of course. But she is smart and a quick learner and it didn't take quite as much drama to get back to the nice work. And Jacel pointed out... she was no longer kicking out at my leg and being fussy in the bridle anymore. So she didn't think it was pain... more of a "I don't want to work and you don't make me if I'm a butt". Which... seems legit. I'm not ruling out pain because.. you never know. But I do agree it felt more like sass and unwillingness today than pain or discomfort. But I'll keep an eye on it and monitor closely. We had a nice go this direction, although her left lead canter still feels more like she's falling in. And today especially I had a hard time pulling my left shoulder back. This is definitely my crooked way and how I struggle, so it's probably more me than Funny. But after a little bit I was able to get myself straighter.
We took another break and then I mentioned something about doing some attempts at lengthening but it was hard because our working trot was essentially a medium trot, so... we probably needed to focus more on collection first. Jacel laughed and told me I wasn't wrong about my trot. Hee hee. I know! I know! So then we talked about how perhaps with her, collection training should come before lengthening training. She's always a forward thinker, so... So we decided to try to do some transitions with the gait by starting with trot to almost walk to trot. Essentially, teaching the half halt. But not with the hand.. with my thighs and my seat and even going to sit trot vs posting. And it worked. It took a bit of repetition but eventually I was getting some really nice trot! Not a collected trot, but an actual working trot. I just had to remember to not use my hand and then when I got the almost walk, instead of asking her to trot, I just had to soften and allow the trot again. When I "ask" for it, she gets a bit too dramatic with it. But once I got the hang of that, she was really good. Whoo hoo!! Then we made sure we did two good almost walk transitions and then, I just allowed her to get big. And we got a few steps of actual lengthen. Well, baby lengthens. It was short lived, and it was not a big change, but it was correct! It wasn't just running. It wasn't on the forehand. Her topline lengthened. Wheee!! Coming back was still a bit hard but I did it the same way I had been asking for the almost walk and it worked!
We took another rest and then finished with the other direction again. At this point she was getting pretty tired and it definitely wasn't as nice this way. I was probably tired too and maybe resorting to my hands a bit more than the first way. But we got in a few good moments so we rewarded her and then called it quits. Yay! Good pony! We'll definitely play with this during our "winter break". No drilling but play with it here and there.
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