Tuesday 2nd December

Today Blossom was full of energy on line, so my plan of working on getting two eyes wasn’t going to work.. All Blossom wanted to do was gallop round in circles, so I helped her! I haven’t done this with her much as usually I tend to try and shut her down but today there was far too much energy there. It was good to see her reaction when she did calm down, it was like wow what happened there?

Once she had settled down I decided it would be better for her to do some slower games as I felt this would help her the most and our sideways does need lots of work. So today was all about sideways game. I started with just working on sideways against a wall, to start with she was very bracey and tried to go forwards, backwards, any way but sideways!!

I then remembered from Jackie’s course about my energy and how to use that as my phase one, and also to stop my energy to hep Blossom stop. This really did help and I think I was maybe using to high a phase for Blossom, and this was what was also causing her to brace as there was too much pressure on her and she was trying to escape. Eddy also mentioned to me when I was talking to him about my problems with sideways, he said not to move my feet faster just because she is moving hers faster as this will only cause her to speed up. So between using this and my energy we got some really good sideways, all I had to do was lift my energy and look in the direction I wanted her to go and she went and then release my energy and she would stop!! Easy as that!!

Seen as everything was going well against the wall I decided to ask for a little more and played point to point game. I had two jump blocks placed out and we had to go sideways to one and then friendly and lots of rest and then back to the other block. Blossom very quickly picked up this game and soon all I had to do was lift my energy look at the block and she was moving sideways towards the block and would then stop and smell the block and rest! This was going so well we moved on to moving towards other markers around the arena and again Blossom got the idea very quick and seem to be enjoying herself!

I then saddled and again started with follow the rail of the round pen and then transitions, she was very good and it took a lot less time compared to yesterday for her to relax. Eddy then appeared and helped me with my riding position, I am always forgetting to have only one hand on the rein or I hold the rein for too long when she comes of the rail etc. So it was good to have Eddy there shouting things at me when I needed them and to help remind me of what I should be doing when I am riding. I feel some times when Blossom becomes impulsive the last thing I think of his what hand should I be using on the reins along with everything else. So it was great to have him helping me with this and hopefully soon enough I will be doing this without any reminding!

Today with Smarty we played lots and lots of friendly game!! I started with just using the CS and in between playing around with a few of the games. Today his circling game was so much better and his disengage came with only a look, what a difference from yesterday. I spoke to Eddy about this before I started playing and he thinks the problem will be because Smarty will have been lunged in the past with previous owners so when I ask him to circle he is just going into lunge mode and just running and not really thinking. Eddy recommended just circling in walk with lots of disengage the HQ before moving into trot and this should help him understand what I am asking of him.
We then played friendly game with the ropes, today he was much better and after a few crazy circles he started to relax and was able to walk with the rope around his bum, touching his legs so I was really happy with this. It will take another couple of weeks I think to get him 100% with all this but already there is a big improvement!