Give Head a Shake

So you know how sometimes you have those mediocre types of rides where nothing exciting happens either good or bad?  Well today, I had kind of the opposite - Walker was both really good and really bad, with no mediocre stroke inbetween.  It's kind of hard to explain other than that I was jumping him over some crossrails, and he was being super willing to participate.  I usually have a hard time convincing him that he is in fact capable of cantering a crossrail, but today he was breaking into a canter all the time and jumping really nicely, if I do say so myself. 

However, at the same time, he was being, well, Walker.  When I was going around the circle on his stiff side and jumping the crossrail, he would come barrelling out of it sometimes towards the hay mound, where a horse currently has a makeshift stall.  The horse, Sizzle, was less than impressed to have Walker bounding towards her little stall, and he was being a jerk about actually turning and continuing on the circle.  In fact, at one point, I asked him to canter towards the jump, and he took off like a rocketship so uncharacteristically fast that I knew he was up to something.  Sure enough, he leapt over the jump and ran right into her stall.  I kid you not.  He literally slammed his body into it.  I realize that he has maybe less than 2 - 3 strides to turn coming out of the jump, but I'm pretty sure that my outside leg jammed into his side and my hand tearing his head to the correct direction should have been warning enough!

Then I set up two crossrails.  One on either long end so we could just keep going around the circle and jumping.  When we would canter over one of them, I would feel really good about my position, his position, etc., but then he would decide to cut the corners despite me obviously trying to stop him from cutting the corners and we would come into the second jump like a hot mess.  I know that my barn owner likes to watch people riding on the security cameras on our arena a lot, so I'm sure that she broke out her popcorn for the show that was Walker and me.  Of course, all the wonderful beautiful jumping took place in the blind spot where she would never be able to see, whereas all the major arguments and knocking rails down happened straight ahead of the cameras.  :S

Really, I must have been having an off day or something, because I also almost fell out of the saddle like 3 times.  I wish I could say that they were times when Walker and I were fighting, but no, not even remotely.  At one point, he was happily and patiently cantering along, and I managed to lose my stirrup. The next thing I know, I'm hanging diagonally off of him while he continues to patiently canter but is clearly concerned that he has a monkey on his back.  This happened several more times, and I lost my stirrup several times too.  I'll admit, I'm not always the best about keeping my heels down while cantering, but falling off and losing my balance?  I'd like to think that I can canter a straight line on a good day without falling off!

So who knows.  Maybe Walker and I were both just really good and really bad today.  I'm sure we'll both appreciate the day off tomorrow.