Bay Horse Tales

I had a pretty good ride yesterday evening. We definitely still had resistance and attitude but he was willing to be encouraged through it. The area where I'm riding right now has a dressage ring next to the jump field. For lessons, I usually warm up and do some dressage work in the ring and then head out to the jump field. Yesterday my coach suggested warming up in the field to take away that element of the equation. It seemed to help riding on the flat around all the jumps first. And there is still plenty of room to do some leg yields and shoulder in, so it works well.


I still had some issues at the canter to the left. I can get a nice rhythm going briefly if I make regular large circles but it still isn't pretty. I've never had such a hard time catching and correcting a dropped shoulder! I do get it sometimes but if I don't catch it and it drops there is almost no hope of correcting it. I have a picture of us circling at this crazy angle and my face says it all. I'm not sharing that one, I post enough embarrassing photos! This issue is nothing new but is harder to deal with outside.


Things were going well enough that we worked on a gymnastic line again. We worked on trotting in again, similar to the day the pics from my last post were taken. Brumby anticipates all the time, he is on his own agenda, so asking him to trot in keeps him listening to my aids. Given his behaviour lately, this seemed like a smart schooling idea.


Trotting in is hard, lol. The rhythm seems all off and it's tricky to judge adequate pace. At first I had him going in too calmly so we lacked the forward impulsion needed to make it nice. Brumby can jump 3 feet from a standstill without a problem but it's pretty darn hard for a rider to go over a jump, pretty much stop and then hurl over the next fence. Once I got the pace it flowed much better and I stayed with him no problem. We ended up going up to a 2'9" oxer nicely, which isn't half bad given where we are right now.


I wonder if the initial increase in grain affected his attitude and now that he's been getting it awhile he's settled down some. This doesn't seem all that plausible to me but I don't know what else to think. He also had almost the whole week off work. This would tend to make me think he would be even more crazy but maybe he actually needed a rest. Frig, horses sure do keep you guessing.

It's simple, let me eat, 

play and nap all day!

In any case, my coach agrees that he's getting too much grain and she's talked to the owner already about it, recommending similar options to those mentioned in the comments. She is going to tactfully bring it up again. They also have an arrangement that our coach will ride him once a week for the next 4 weeks or so. This makes me happier than anything! She has pretty reasonable rates for training rides and it's not like Brumby is ready to show anyway, so the money might as well go into training. Obviously this will help in so many ways.