Fancy, Sassy, and Sweet

Ha! Like a sour patch kid!

 

She is in raging heat though too. Of course, I also woke up cranky and snarky. So it was a good thing that I opted to ride Lyric first in my Liz lessons. I was in a better mood when it was Funny's turn, though she came to the lesson ready to pick a fight. In fact, Liz decided to have "words" with her before we even started. She made her submit and yield to Liz but also sent her some good energy and healing. We talked about how we needed to sometimes let Funny make choices and sometimes we need to make it clear that she's not the boss. We pick our battles. And since we started off by telling Funny that "today is not the day" and made her yield... we then gave her a "win" by letting her choose. She wandered towards the rope gate, so I told her that she could do it if she wanted and she did. It wasn't perfect in her positioning or super smooth, but it was really good for her first time doing it. Yay! Good girl!

 

So then we went to work. She was fussy and fought me a good bit but we also got some really nice work. I cannot lock my elbows! I have to keep them bent at my sides. Keep my post slow. Slower still. Post very small to make it slower. I was threatened with having to sit the trot! Ha ha.. Okay, I'll slow it down!! But it was a good incentive to get her trot smaller. Partly because there's no way I could sit her trot without making it smaller but also because... oh.. .that small! Of course she did make me sit it anyways, and I did. I had to cheat some and "hover" it but I was able to get a few steps of actual sitting trot in. And she felt great!! I mean, when she wasn't sassy, she felt really good! She was lifting her back and round and on the bit! So powerful and fancy! We even had some lovely transitions and some of our up transitions weren't even explosive! Yahoo! We didn't canter today because we ended up such a lovely fancy trot. It gets nice when I keep the tempo slow, keep my hands wide, dont' cross my left hand over the wither, don't get sucked into fighting, and all the things. Ha ha. But seriously.. if she starts to pick a fight, I can either ignore, or just ask her to do something else. It's hard for her to buck when I'm asking for a bend, or hard to rear when I ask her to change directions or do a half pass or a small circle. Fight smarter Holly, not harder. And then.. because she's Funny... give her some small wins. Let her make some (Good) choices.