Rainy Daze

Head shot - as requested!

Last night Walker and I had a pretty good ride.  We didn't end up jumping in our lesson though.  We had an extra girl join our lesson who is younger and doesn't jump, which tipped the scales to two vs two on the jumping front.  It was also a little crowded in the arena with four of us.  All the other lessons have four, but the fourth person in our lesson hasn't been able to come for a while because he has a bad back.  Anywho, my instructor promised me that we would jump next week.  There was just too much going on this week to add that in, but I could tell that she was just as disappointed as I was!

But of course I couldn't keep my big mouth closed during the lesson, and I had to bring up that I wanted to start cantering crossrails although we've only just officially had one trot lesson over rails.  I'm impatient, and Walker and I have been practicing trotting (and cantering) them for awhile now.  Anyway, one thing led to another, and my instructor, who is thankfully the most thorough instructor in the world, insisted that we learn to canter as many poles as possible first so that we will get used to distances.  Cantering the pole is not the problem, I explained.  It's getting him deep enough into the corners in our tiny arena so that I can come at the pole straight.  What I didn't tell her was that last week when I was cantering crossrails by myself, I could not achieve a straight approach every one time and so Walker, surprisingly willing, jumped it an angle... towards the wall.

So, my instructor decided to put down a few poles to create a barrier to keep him straight.  She started with this.  The red line is the pole we are actually trying to canter.  The blue lines are the other poles intended to be barriers.

Walker was still able to cut off the corners though so she added more:

But you see, Walker is a master of getting around my instructor's traps, and he is very resistant to my inside leg when he wants to be.  He also wanted to be with his friends who were watching this hilarious show from the middle of the arena.  So by the end of the performance, my instructor built a race track of sorts to force us to stay on the rail.  

No, I am not kidding.  This is what it has come to.

Did we stay outside the blue poles and come at the canter pole straight?  Of course not.  He happily clambered over all the poles while my instructor screamed "INSIDE LEG" and I kicked with all my might in those stupid little English spurs.  For the record, I am more than capable of keeping him on the rail in Western spurs.  Sigh.  Lazy pony.  But we did do it correctly enough times to make my instructor happy.

Dirty pony.

Needless to say,  when I got to the barn today, I worked on pushing him into the corners!  I only actually set up two poles diagonally in the corners at the top of the arena where he tends to cut the most, but I made it very clear to him that cutting them was not an option.  Of course he's lazy, but he's also more willing to oblige when he doesn't have three horses to show off in front of!  I kid you not. He did it every time for me, the little bugger.  But no, not when people are watching.

Other than that, I threw in a little stirrupless trotting, some turns on the haunches and forehand, and some canter departs from a halt.  Just a mishmash of different activities.  Tomorrow we will trot some crossrails, and probably practice cantering some poles (and staying in those corners!).

Walker attacking the crossties.
For the record, he is normally very quiet on crossties.
He just likes to aggravate me.