Tuesday's Ride - Melt Downs and Moments of Success!

Yesterday the sun was shining and the weather finally felt like spring.  It was a beautiful day.  I was able to ride outside again in a long sleeve tee shirt which was just fantastic because the next 3 days rain is in the forecast and I will most likely be back indoors... Boo

Liam was being pretty good to start out.  He was being soft and accepting the contact.  I went back to my lateral exercises.  I start out by going across the diagonal and asking him to leg yield into the new direction.  I used to just allow him to take a few steps and reward him and continue trotting on, but now that we are past the point of baby lateral work, I am asking for a little more.   I want him to lead with his hind end, not his shoulder or straight, if that makes sense.  Almost like a shoulder in without the bend...  He really gets flustered when I block the outside shoulder from moving over.  He will fling his head above the contact.  And then I had the audacity to slightly tap him behing my leg with my whip to move those hips over. 

Well then a full on melt down accured.  Grinding teeth, flinging head, tense body... Usually when Liam got like this in the past it was hopeless.  I might as well get off and start again tomorrow.  I decided to not give in that easily this time.  I asked him to canter and just did simple things.  Asked him to stay straight, bending circles, until he stopped cantering around like a jack hammer and gave me a soft canter.  Went back to the trot and asked again for small lateral work and he gave, but he was not happy about it, still tense, but much improved.  Then I decided it was time to start practicing the small crossrails with adjustability from my jump school. 

I knew my ring wasn't long enough to get a 66ft line like I did over the weekend, but was able to get a 54ft line which made my options with very small raised cavalettes a 5, 6, or 7 compared to a 6, 7, or 8 that I did over the weekend, but still the same concept.  Again the 5 and 6 were easy and the 7 turned out to be a bit more difficult.  Instead of sitting down and compressing he would raise above the bridle and break to a trot.  It is a really hard balancing act between my leg and my hand.  We did get the 7 strides in both driections and I called it quits after that.  I would like the 7 to be more round and compressed, but I will take what I can get. 

I am pretty proud of Liam to have a complete melt down and come back from that and finish up nicely, we have struggled with this in the past.   Maybe my boy is finally growing up to a big boy riding horse!

Liam was completely sweaty after my ride, and the water isn't turned on in the barn yet, so I decided that I would clip his legs up to his knees while he dried.  Now I typically only like to clip a clean horse, but figured that wasn't an option at the moment and I clipped with dirty legs (don't tell the grooming gods).  I don't think they came out too bad.  Killed the clipper blades though...