Tuesday 9th December

Today I wasn’t going to play with Blossom as I really didn’t feel I had the energy or the savvy to deal with her. So instead I decided I would give her a ET session, I had just finished grooming her and just about to start the ET when Eddy came out and offered to play with her for me. I spoke to him last night about the problems I had had, so I think he knew how bad I was feeling.

Eddy worked on her back up as this was what I was trying to work on yesterday when everything seemed to go wrong. But interestingly Eddy got exactly the same response as I did.. It actually made me feel much better as it then wasn’t something I was doing wrong that was causing this behaviour to occur. But the difference was Eddy had the strength to stop her pulling him all over the school like she was doing with me, at the start he really was having to use a lot of his strength to stop her running off !! She eventually worked out what he was trying to do with her and started to soften slightly, but every now and then she would still fight him.

He moved on to playing with circles with her and one of the things he did mention was she jumps her HQ round when she disengages instead of crossing her back legs. I did know she did this but I didn’t think anything off it really a couple of other instructers have commented on this but never said I should be doing anything to stop her doing it.. Eddy said that if I can get her to stop this and start yielding and crossing her legs, this should also improve her back up as at the moment her HQ seem to do something totally different from the rest of her body.

Eddy then played with getting her to go sideways around him in a circle as he says this will help her learn to flex her body and also learn to cross her back legs - which will the help with the disengage and also then her backup!

So it was really great for me to watch Eddy playing with Blossom as it showed me that I have to learn to be firmer with her and use phase 4 if this is what is required, as Eddy really did use this on her a lot in the beginning and it worked. I also need to be more precise on what I am asking for and only quit when she really puts effort in, I think I have been letting her off with far too much and this is what as then caused these bad behaviours she has started to show. I think the next couple of weeks are really going to be a challenge but I think they will really help me to become a stronger person and improve my horsemanship skills.

With Smarty today I started with playing friendly game in the stable mainly with his legs as I wanted to wash the cream off his legs so first I thought it was better to get him more confident. This went quite well and I managed to get his legs all washed and fresh cream applied without much hassle.

We then went into the arena and started with playing friendly game with the CS which went really well so I moved on to playing with the CS with a plastic bag on the end. This required a little approach and retreat but was much better than the other day and within a few minutes I was able to rub him all over with it.
All other game also went well today, his sideways really has improved and today we got several lovely steps without any brace and as soon as I asked him to stop he was really licking and chewing so I think he is starting to get the idea!!
Today we also played with circling game over a jump and he was really good and stayed really calm and jumped the jump three times each way.

I then played stick to me to get him really connected to my energy and get his back up really good. I then mounted bareback and started with ride the rail in walk and the started asking for a 9 step back up to start with I had to reinforce what I was asking with the CS on his chest, but after only a few times he got the idea and was able to go backwards from just the pressure on his halter. So we started adding in trot and we were soon trotting around then walk, stand and back up and this was mainly only from my energy and very little pressure on the reins. So I was really happy with this and stop for the night.