Day 13 - Puzzlement

The plan today was on the fly and it was simple - try to figure out why our Figure 8 is broken. I don't know what it is but some part of this pattern is just not working for us. I think we are close to the end of our seven sessions for this particular pattern and I swear she's worse at the end than she was at the beginning.

To start, her draw will go out the window. She'll come around the cone and just stay on the circle rather than acknowledge the draw. Going to the left, she flattens the circle and will often miss the cone or come to a dead halt in front of it. There is no flow to the pattern. At all.

Today I started by checking her drive and draw - both were good so on to the pattern. She repeatedly cut in when going to the left. At one point I interrupted the pattern with quite a bit of intention. She screeched to a halt and immediately licked and chewed. She was still flat on the left. I decided to isolate out the shoulder so we switched over to a circle game and I used the CS and some energy to push her shoulder out on the circle. The first couple of times we did it, she came to a halt when I asked for the shoulder yield. We continued until she could offer the yield and maintain the trot. We finished with some sideways, again with the goal of getting her to carry that shoulder out.

Before I put her away, I jumped on her bareback with the halter and just walked a little and then asked her for a little trot. Nothing special but it was nice to be on her and nice to feel her trot and know I could ride it.

I have a riding lesson tomorrow so I should actually get some real saddle time in.

Day 12 - Takin' It Easy

I really do want to ride my horse again. It just seems that life intervenes and my plans are thwarted.

Last night was some crazy weather - strong winds, incoming storms. Just not the kind of environment that encourages me to saddle up in the arena all by my lonesome.

I decided just to pull Cricket out and groom her. She needs a good curry and brush session so I figured that would be my ten minutes. To incorporate some patience lessons, I brought out my friend Becky's mare and groomed both horses, alternating between the two.

It was just sweet bonding time with my horse. I found some itchy spots, doctored the little sore on her back and rubbed some ointment stuff into the scrapes on her legs. I brushed out her mane and curried the dirt off her face.

I left both mares tied while I prepped the evening feed. Cricket did just fine, as usual. I put the horses back in the stalls and trudged through the mud to open the runs. As I made my way up Cricket's run, she was standing looking at me. I spoke to her, just in case she was unsure of the figure approaching out of the dark. Even though she had hay in her stall and she had to cross the icky mud to get to me, she walked out of her stall and met me part way down the run. Then she walked back with me to her hay. That was incredibly precious.

Today the plan is to work a little on our Figure 8 and then to ride. I want to keep it low-key and just feel successful with her.

Day 11 - The Drudgery of Middles

I was not into my session yesterday. I'm sure Cricket felt it.

I am not good with "middles." I may not have gotten much from the Stephanie Burns part of PNH but I did gain a better understanding of why I never finish anything. I hate middles. I hate the drudgery, the repetition, the seemingly never-ending same-ness. I love beginnings and endings are great because they often signify new beginnings. But getting from the start to the finish requires a level of commitment I don't often give.

So the real challenge of this "30 in 30" is to get through the middle and find a better appreciation for that particular part of my horsemanship endeavour.

Work has been keeping me a little busier these past few days so I've been arriving at the barn later than usual. My motivation has been fairly low so I've stuck to groundwork.

I brought Cricket out and did a quick friendly, HQ yield and FQ yield. I was pleased at her responsiveness. I set up the Figure 8 and moved on. She was all over the map - most likely a direct result of my lack of focus. Her draw was getting worse so we stopped and broke everything down. The first time took a long time to elicit a lick and chew. But each time after that, she would draw to me, look as if asking a question and then lick and chew when I indicated she'd done exactly what I wanted. We finished with a couple of good patterns. Nothing as good as previous attempts but better than we started.

I asked her for the weave pattern and we did a little bit of trotting. It wasn't spectacular but I was pleased with her responsiveness. Again, considering my focus, I'm surprised she listened to me at all!

While there was nothing super impressive about the session, I did notice she was better at coming straight to me and continuing to look at me as she processed her thoughts. Previously she's had a tendency to turn away from me. I've noticed it more, addressed it more and now it seems she's more interested in me than she has been. She also offered a canter on the F8.

Tonight the plan is to ride. We'll see how that goes.

Day 10 - Contentment

I am endeavoring to become more content with the pace of my journey with Cricket. Sometimes it is so hard because I want so much and I know my horse is incredibly capable. But we're not there . . . yet.

Last night my resolve to continue for thirty days was challenged. I was a little tired from a great Pilates session. It was dark. The arena was empty with the lights off. It would have been so easy to feed the horses, turn them out and just head home. But I made a promise to myself and so I decided for some groundwork and maybe bareback mounting friendly game. A simple plan with an excellent chance of success.

Cricket's Touch It on the 22' has gotten really good. We had some confusion last night but it was her making a little assumption between two objects that were very close together. As soon as I 'splained to her "not that one, but the other one," she said, "why didn't you say so?" Yesterday was day seven of that pattern so it will be somewhat laid to rest only to be pulled out occasionally until is start working it at L3 with the 45' line. It feels good to tuck that accomplishment in my belt.

We moved on to Figure 8 - I think this is day four, I'll have to go back and look at my journal. It started pretty sloppy and I had to remind Cricket that I did, in fact, have a plan. Once she hooked on, she started giving me better drive and draw responses. I think the pattern might have been a bit claustrophobic for cantering but she offered a little. When we quit, she offered me a good run on the pattern with me at the end of the 22'.

I moved on to the weave. I didn't have the energy to set out a big weave so we just had a small row of cones and I asked her to walk the pattern. I tried to stay as close to the end of the 22' as possible. She did really well, only missing about two cones in the four or five times we did the pattern. I need to work more on using my energy with her at greater distances. I don't want to have to rely on my stick to push her shoulder over.

As part of my program to get under saddle cantering better, I decided to throw in a couple of circles and ask for upward transitions. We started at the walk and moved to the trot and then to the canter. Both her trot-to-canter transitions were very smooth with no pop of her head. I allowed her to canter until she smoothed into a nice three beat rhythm. The right lead took longer but I just left her alone and when she relaxed, I disengaged her and brought her in. It was some of the best cantering she's done in a long time.

We finished at the pedestal with some bareback mounting friendly game. Cricket has taken to pinning her ears at bareback mounting. So with a pocket full of cookies, I started a friendly game of jumping up and down, flopping over her and eventually swinging my legs back and forth down her side. We did this from both sides. She was a complete angel. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she accepted it.

It was a good day and I am happy with how she is progressing with my consistent attention. I'm going to try and ride tonight but might not get back on her until tomorrow. Regardless, I will be pleased with whatever horse shows up.

Day 9 - Regrouping

Tuesday was an off day. The weather was dreary and overcast and I just felt pulled down by the world. I was still pretty bummed about Monday and I just didn't want to do anything with Cricket.

But I made a commitment and it is very important that I see it through. I need to prove to myself that progress is possible and that is going to be a test of my resolve.

When I'm not feeling up to par, it's very easy for Cricket to see through any facade I might offer. It's not worth the battle of wills that results in me getting mad and her getting offended. So another day of relative undemanding time.

I decided to take on of the 10-minute tips and just do some carrot stretches with her. Cricket is pretty flexible already but I figured this would be a constructive way to love on her and give her cookies. I don't know if I spent a full 10 minutes with her or not. It doesn't matter. I enjoyed her company and she enjoyed mine.

When I let the horses out for the night, part of my plan to keep one horse up went badly astray and all the mares were out together. I debated about just leaving her but I knew her owner was coming out to ride and I wanted the mare to be up. Revising my plan, I decided to prepare the stall next to Cricket's so the owner could easily turn the mare back out and not have to wade through the muck and mud in the dark.

Cricket was on her way out of the run when I opened the other stall door to clean the area for the other mare. She turned and came back to me. How precious! She finally realized I was busy and she headed out. The mares were milling in the catch pen part of the pasture and I figured as soon as I was done with the stall I could head out and catch the other mare.

Just as that thought ran through my mind I heard thundering hooves. All four horses were tearing around the field, headed for the back corner. Great! There wasn't anything I could do so I kept cleaning the stall. More thundering hooves as all four mares ran up the run where I was cleaning the stall. Blowing, tails flagged, prancing. And my precious Cricket in the lead.

I walked out of the stall and offered Cricket a cookie and then another horse and then I approached the horse I wanted. Nothing doing. Cricket turned them all and out they went again. As pretty as it was to see my beautiful girl galloping around the field, I was trying to figure out how to catch the mare I wanted.

Finally they settled in to the catch pen area and I went out to halter the mare. Cricket came right up to me and wanted to follow me around. When she realized I wasn't there for her, she went off to graze.

It was a good day to reconnect with my mare and see that despite a not-so-good day on Monday, we're still all good.