Apparently 3pm yesterday was THE time to ride, as I saw both other people who ride out at the barn. Unfortunately Big Horse's owner was tacking up when I showed up so I could already tell that the ride wasn't going to be super productive.
Pro was very happy to come in out of the cold to get groomed and didn't object to heading back out to ride. When I got on Big Horse was on a like 10m circle on the lunge line because he hadn't been messed with in THREE WHOLE DAYS! ;) Pro ignored him though and we settled into a 15m circle on the other end of the ring. He was going pretty well and I worked on regaining the feel from the lesson. He got a nice rhythmic walk pretty fast so I worked on getting him to un-lock his neck by doing some neck flexions to the inside and outside and some small circles on the big circles. Each time after I unlocked it he'd move out really nice for about half a circle before we had to repeat it. Finally moved up to the trot and he was being good, just needed some time for us to play around with stuff and for him to settle into a good, steady rhythm. Unfortunately about 5-10 min into our trot work Big Horse's owner got on. She cut us off a couple times and I finally just gave up, figuring it wasn't going to work to ask for a regular trot when I kept having to slam on the brakes or do weird figures at the last minute. I think with another 15-20 min he'd have gotten back to where he was on Thurs, so I was pretty annoyed.
On the other hand, he spazzed at one point when we went by the mirror, I'm not sure if it was from seeing Big Horse in it or what, but a few seconds later Big Horse also jumped out of his skin in the same spot. Pro just trotted right back by it without even looking the next circuit though, so I was proud of him for that.
6 comments:
I think you should teach Pro to bite! I taught Apple to bite on command years ago, we only use it for working horses but it might be useful to teach Big Horse and his owner to BACK OFF!!!!
What is your holiday schedule like? I'm going to be that way for almost a week.......
I really hate it when other people cut you off like that! It sounds like Pro was handling it pretty well over all, though.
It's amazing how horses will spook at mirrors...Huey and Surf see the mirrors everyday, and still they'll spook at them out of the blue :P
I was reading on COTH about horses reactions to mirrors. Some alpha mares try to attack the mirror! So..spooking, not so bad.
But at least you got him to unlock, even a little bit helps! :) Your lesson really was a magical hour and I saw SO much improvement that it's hard to compare a post-lesson ride with the actual lesson.
I think he's doing great! :)
Sorry about Big Horse taking up the ring...but good for Pro for only acting up once by the mirror!
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