There’s Always Another Day
Lately I haven’t been getting much sleep, as you can probably see from the 2am blog entries. I lay there, and lay there thinking about how confusing my life is at the moment. Blogging just seems more productive. Normally I’m always a cheerful, peaceful person at the barn. I never get in fights with other riders, or fight back with the ponies during a bad ride. Lack of sleep obviously caught up with me today. Every little thing aggravated me! However, when the assistant trainer asked if I was up for riding a couple other ponies today, I couldn’t resist.
First, I dealt with Morgan. Remembering how spooky he was yesterday, I decided to ride with my head today. So, the pompoms (horse ear plugs) went in, I also decided to change his bit. To the dreaded metal d-ring. It gave me more stop than the rubber one, and he definitely didn’t pull or lean. He was FANTASTIC! Much better than I expected! No spooking or resisting the bit, in fact, when I asked him, he would soften his jaw and accept the bit. He first accepted it at the halt, later he started accepting it at the trot, and finally at the walk. In wasn’t long, but the fact that he’s finally starting to listen to me and trust me, made me ecstatic! We did do canter work, but it was mainly just working on staying steady and balanced. I only hacked him for about 15 minutes, but as Robert Dover says; “15 minutes of solid work is better than an hour and a half of wandering aimlessly around the ring”. I also thought that maybe the short ride and day off tomorrow would make him happy and he’d try his best for me Thursday, our first private lesson, or he could flip out again from having so much energy.
Next I hopped on PD. The rain has been gone, but the wind was horrible today. The wind + the indoor arena = lots of noise. She was very spooky, but still went along quite nicely at the trot. The wind seemed as though it had died down, and she was starting to relax. Finally, I let her pick up the canter. Of course, every time I would ask for a canter transition, a huge gust of wind would come, she’d toss her head straight up and the spooking continued. It’s not her fault, most horses in the south aren’t used to indoor areas and indoors are quite noisy. After so many failed attempts, and realizing that I was now just picking a fight with her and losing the battle, I decided to cool her out.
Up next was Dixie. By this point I was so frustrated, I was sick of the rain, the wind, the cold and spooky ponies. I hopped aboard Dixie, and she pranced the “jig of death” to the arena. “Great”, I thought “ANOTHER spooky pony!”. I wasn’t even giving her time to relax, I was already flustered because I just knew she was going to be bad. I picked a fight with her over every little thing. Her little quirks that I normally don’t notice. After having a chat with my trainer, I just had to laugh at myself. I was being so stupid and over dramatic. At the same time, I knew my mood wouldn’t improve, I decided to call it a day. “Houdini gets lucky today”, I told the assistant trainer as I put Dixie’s blankets back on.
When you’re no longer accomplishing anything, and rather doing more damage, you have to know when to call it a day. There’s always another day for fixing those problems, and in a better mood they don’t seem nearly as impossible!
