OK, so a few updates. Bunnerino and I are going to attempt the 2'3 provided Tropical Storm Emily doesn't rain us out. I am also showing Miracle, a six year old Dutch Warmblood mare I have been riding, and Patti's horse Aeros in his flat classes so she can teach her other riders. I love being at this barn, haha.
Let me tell you a little about Miracle, which burns me up. Her owners have fifteen horses, eleven of which live on their shithole five acre property. They have two stallions, neither of which are handleable and one which is sporting a fist-sized gash in his chest. They do everything so bass-ackwards: they just had a horse die this week of a twisted gut and all but refused to call a vet, yet they are installing an arena. They have a mare who is foundering and supposed to be confined to stall rest, but they turned her out because they think she'd be happier. They are just generally idiots and the finest of fine white trash. Miracle is homebred out of one of their original horses, is a daughter of Freestyle with the papers to prove it, and is so named because she was born extremely premature and survived by the skin of her teeth. They have money but no sense to go along with it. I blame inbreeding.
Anyways, Miracle is at Countryside for training after having her mouth torn out by an incompetent trainer down the road. Patti is riding their other two horses on property but as they are not paying their fees and she doesn't have time to ride five horses and give as many lessons every day, we discussed it with the owner and Miracle is basically mine to play with until the end of the year.
One of her many challenges is her tendency to lock her jaw and just PULL. She is the most unrhythmic horse I have ever sat upon and is very leery of any contact. Yet she is extremely intelligent and has so much "try" you just have to love her. Patti basically restarted her from the ground up and she has come miles under her schooling, but she still has that residual distrust of new riders. I have bloody blisters to prove it from my first ride, where we spent thirty minutes doing transitions and trying to keep her from running off.
Here is video from our second ride. She is a little short strided as she is eight weeks into her trim cycle. (AGH!) You can see, however, that she is catching on. I was thinking (mistakenly) that a sponging action on the inside rein would soften her up, but she is so tense through her jaw that she just waggled her head. I know better now after seeing the video. Different horse from Bun- with her, a light vibration of the inside rein cues her to reach into my contact.
Anyways, today was even better. I am having to learn to take a different tack with her- slow, soft work, fixing my hands in one place and pushing her into the contact. As soon as she accepts it, I soften a little and praise her. She is like riding a two-by-four in terms of bending and has no lateral balance to speak of (again, very very green) so lots of gentle circles (which are a huge challenge for her in themselves) and stretchy-trot work. She picked up both leads for me today too, after a LOT of encouragement and flexing her to the outside to blind her outside shoulder. *sigh* I hate doing that, but she would NOT stay up in her shoulder unless I did so. She is flat and unbalanced but has stride to burn- love how she moves in that respect. As soon as her tootsies are done we will start incorporating poles and cavaletti. At the show, we are planning on trotting the crossrails course. If it were up to me I wouldn't show her until she was balanced, but her owners want the exposure and heck, she is super game and it will be good for her.
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