In truth, I don't have all that much to report, hence the title of the post. On Monday, as I said, Walker turned up lame and so I gave him Tuesday off to recover and get his feet done. Unfortunately, that meant that he ended up having 4 - 5 days off, and so I knew that he would be wild on Wednesday, especially since it was also raining for a couple of days and he hadn't been turned out. That kind of sequence of coincidences is just my luck!
On Wednesday for my lesson, he was pretty bad. I knew that he would be bad, and so the second I hopped on him, I said to my instructor, "I can tell he is in a mood tonight," to which she responded, "Natalie, don't say that before the lesson has even started." I do not even lie when I say that two seconds later he decided to bolt across the arena, and he proceeded to bolt probably 15 more times that evening. He didn't even consistently bolt to other horses or the gate; he just wanted to run. Unfortunately, I ended up walking him for an hour because I didn't want him to think that he could get away with doing what he wanted, and I felt pretty bad about myself afterwards. I told my instructor that I didn't want her to think that I was afraid/apprehensive of trotting/cantering my horse, but she said that she understood because it was important to get a control of him, especially at the slower speeds, or else I'd never win. On Monday night after he turned up lame, I ended up meeting her in the locker room, and she kindly told me that she thought I was doing great work with him. So even though he was beyond bad during the lesson, I was happy that at least she complimented my progress.
Interestingly enough, he was back to his old self today when I went out. I have often said that my lessons are a disaster for a number of factors: outside arena, other horses, night time, autumn, and my own anxieties about people watching. So when we're alone in the day time, we tend to have good rides (not counting his crazy fire-breathing antics last week). I was disappointed because I tried to recreate an exercise that my instructor had us do last night in the lesson (me at the walk, and the other students at the walk/trot/canter). It was like a clover leaf pattern, but try as I might, I could not manage to lope it. We could do it fine at the walk/trot, as I knew we would, but unfortunately, I could not seem to manage to make the turns at the right time to do it at the canter. I really thought that I could do it on my own - especially on his good lead - but I made up for it by making him do some smaller circles, etc.
I've also been taking advantage of his ability to do flying lead changes. Half of his attitude problem is that he doesn't want to turn when I ask him to. He will come up to a fence and when I ask him to turn left, he will defy me and go right. So today, if I couldn't win the battle to make him go left, I would push him to do a flying lead change and keep cantering so that either way he was working. I'm hoping that will help. In fact, I don't think that we will ever really have problems with the flying lead change. He seems to have perfected the art effortlessly enough. If only I could do a simple lead change...
Tomorrow my plan for frantic corner is something knew. Although pushing his ribs over and into the bend with my inside leg has helped me get a few steps out of him around the corner, it is not consistent (or else I am not doing it correctly, which is also possible). Tomorrow I've decided that I'm going to pile frantic corner full of stuff - poles, jump standards, pylons, etc - so that he cannot actually go into the corner. There were a couple standards in that corner today and so he was actually unable to stop and turn around in that corner. Instead, he was forced to keep turning, but he just stopped when he did. I think tomorrow I will set up the corner so that there is no corner, just a rounded edge, and hopefully I can take advantage of him not wanting to run into stuff and push him through it. I will do whatever it takes! It is by far the most frustrating thing I've encountered, especially considering our progress on his good side - other than my inability to do the pattern today :( I am truly disappointed about that.
In the meantime, every so often, I like to take a look at the things I do wrong, not just Walker. Today I was thinking that I still need to work on my seat at the canter. I lean too much - either forward, to the side, or even stand up in the saddle. I need a more sturdy seat and be able to take his sometimes abrupt turns with him, instead of avoiding them by leaning or standing up. I also still need to work on my hands. Although I'm not pulling on his mouth as much, I think that I still yank a little bit on the corners. I think I need to take my instructors ideas to heart. She always says that you need to look where you're going - not exactly the most novel idea, but one that people often ignore. She says that if you are turning in a circle, you should be looking towards your destination, and your hands and your feet will follow. I agree because oftentimes I'm looking forward, like I probably was today, and so I was unable to corner around the turns like I needed to, which resulted in choppy turns, me leaning, and me pulling at the last minute to facilitate the turn. It's definitely something to work on, as every day is.
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