Monday 15th December

Today with Blossom we started with playing with stick to me to warm us both us a little and to get her connected to my energy levels.
We then moved on to playing with sideways, this was very good today so I moved on to trying sideways over a pole. I found today that she could or would only do this when I was in zone 1, when I tried to get sideways from zone 3 she just tried to go forwards and backwards over the pole so I will need to keep playing with this to try and improve this.

I then played with backwards over a pole, she still seems to have confidence issues when zone 5 gets close to the pole. So today I spent a lot of time playing with approach and retreat to try and help her confidence with this, and it really did seem to help a lot so I will continue to work with this and see how we get on.

We then played with circles and I think because she had a day off yesterday she was full of energy, so as soon as I asked for canter she totally exploded!! Galloping round and then she would stop and spin and the rear up and then take off in the other direction bucking - it was really good to watch!!
So normally when she does this I usually shut her down, but today I really matched her energy and this really seemed to worked for her and she soon relaxed and calmed down. So we the continued to play with circles and also added in a jump and a pole and a few other objects to really keep her focused.

To then calm everything down we played with the pedestal and today all 4 feet touched!! So we left it at that for the day as this was a big achievement for Blossom.

I then gave her a little break while I had a hot drink and then we played with change of direction which went really well on the 12ft rope but not quite as good on the 22ft, so I will work on this as I think my rope skills may be some of the problem here.. We then played with transitions and these were really nice and soft, especially the downward transitions so I was really happy with this!

I then mounted bareback and check my lateral flexion and then started with ride the rail of the arena, she was very calm and relaxed and today I main aim was to work with bending her to a stop as this will help her emotionally as well as stop her physically. This went really well today and she was really soft and stopping really well even from trot.

I then worked with sideways, this wasn’t as good as it was the other day but I am not quite sure why?? Eddy was in the arena and he said my position and focus was perfect, so that wasn’t the problem. So he suggested using point to point her help give her a focus instead of just going against the wall - this helped slightly but I still didn’t feel she was as soft as she had been the other day as was still a little bit resistant to what I was asking her to do. So I will try and work on this more.


Today with Smarty I started wit friendly game with the CS which wet really well. I then moved on to playin with yo yo game with him, but today we had a slight problem as after a few backwards steps he would then try and go off onto a circle, so I really had to be firm with him and say no just go backwards. So we spent quite a lot of time playing with this to get it good again before I becomes a bigger problem. We the played with squeeze game between me and the wall, which was good so we moved on to playing with squeeze over a pole and again he was really good at this too!

We then played with sideways and this is improving and he now understands that he is to move sideways but he is always really close to the wall and if he could move forward he would, so I will need to try and improved this a little more and then we can start playing without a wall.

Eddy had brought a trailer into the arena for us to play with so I thought I would see what Smart thought of loading Parelli style. We started with just playing circling game over the ramp, he was a little worried to start with as the ramp really made a lot of noise with him walking over it but he very quickly relaxed. So I moved on to asking him to squeeze into the trailer, he was really unsure of this and only managed his front feet on the ramp with his nose in the trailer. But I thought for a first attempt and seen as he is so knew to playing the seven games he done really well. And I think once he is more confident with the seven games, he will understand what I am asking him to do a lot better and will therefore be more confident with trailer loading this way.