Naughty Pony

Today was not one of my best rides. In fact I felt like I accomplished nothing. The warm up went well. I actually hopped on him bareback since I have only ridden bareback once and he seemed very mellow this morning. I worked on stretching my legs down and wrapping my legs around him, and also doing some walk and halt transitions. Once warmed up I threw the saddle on and did some trot work. From almost the start I knew we were going to have to have a harsh conversation about that it is NOT okay to run for the garage door out when I'm asking for a nice 20 meter circle. When I thought he finally had it through his head I asked for the canter on the circle and again he tried pulling his little stunt which is him crooking his neck towards the door while his head still is looking in the direction I want to go but his body says "NO I'm going to the door!". I am usually not one for kicking a horse, but I resorted to taking my foot out of the stirrup and kicking him. Sadie told me that when he gets like that to stop, get myself recollected, and go in the direction I wanted to go originally. My thinking went to "Won't that teach him that doing this lets him not do work?" But she assured me that it will teach him that bending and doing that stunt won't let him get his way.

I thought I had it, but Sadie asked to get on him because he started right back up after a few more circles. This made my pride hurt. I'm usually not the kind to deny help, but I felt like I was a solid enough rider to deal with a situation like that, but from the progress we weren't making it proved I wasn't. Sadie got him and secretly I was happy to see that he threw the same stunt at her, it just made me feel like it wasn't all my fault. She got him to the point where he didn't fight the circle and I hoped back on him to walk him out. So needless to say I was not happy with my riding this morning and felt like I had accomplished nothing.

Oh well you have your good days and off days.

Thanks for reading.