Monday 26th January

Today Eddy had another lady coming for the next two days for horsemanship lessons and he said me and Corine could join in too.

We all had a chat to start with about what we would like to work on, I said with Smarty I would like to work more on his confidence as over the last week he had appeared a little nervous again, and with Blossom I wanted Eddy to have a look at my seven games at liberty. We also discussed when to use a phase 4 and also when to use treats. So it was a really interesting discussion and I feel I actually learnt quite a lot from it.

So this morning I decided to start with Smarty and typical he was really good and relaxed, so Eddy couldn’t really help me with any of the problems I have been experiencing with him as he couldn’t see them! But to help me improve his confidence even more he suggested that I work on the S pattern with him to help him become more confident about giving me two eyes and this should also help improve my draw. H also helped my with moving him sideways on the circle, similar to what we have been working on with Blossom as he also looks out of the circle but nothing as extreme as Blossom is.

So it was a really good session and Smarty stayed relaxed and connected to me most of the time, Eddy said that maybe the problems I have had are nothing to do with anything I am doing wrong when we are playing. It might be actually Smarty has had a bad nights sleep or maybe he just isn’t in the mood to play, these are more just examples but something like this could be the cause…

This afternoon I played with Blossom and started with a little bit of online stuff to get her connected to me and then I let her go at liberty just in the arena. We started with playing with some stick to me around the arena and this went very well in walk, trot and back up. I then trailer loaded her at liberty, she had never seen the trailer that was in the arena and she still went straight in! But I did have a little problem getting her to come back out, I could get her to back a couple of steps by using the stick outside the trailer moving it up and down. But I couldn’t get her to come all the way out (she likes the trailer) Eddy suggested I use her tail, but that didn’t really work as I haven’t done enough of this on line for her to understand what I am asking. So in the end I had to go into the trailer with her and back her out this way.

I then spoke to Eddy about my seven games at liberty saying the main problem was my squeeze game, as soon as I send her she takes off and won’t disengage. Seen as there was someone in the round pen he suggested I have a play with it against the wall in the arena and see how it goes there. So I did, some of it was good, but she did leave a couple of times but the problem with this was she then went over to try and attack the horse in the round pen. So I decided that it wasn’t fair on the other lady trying to work at liberty, so I put a string round her neck and attached the rope to that and played some more with squeeze game and sideways and this went very well.

I then went into the round pen and asked Eddy if he could watch so if I had any problems he could help me with them or see what I was doing wrong that may be causing the problem. But all the games went very well, typical I get Eddy to watch so he can help me and there is no problems!!

I then rode her in the round pen with just the string in walk, trot and canter and she was really good and relaxed. So I then decided to saddle her and ride her with the cradle bit again, and she was really good and we managed to do some really nice transitions from walk, trot and canter. I then managed to convince Eddy to ride her, as he has a quarter horse in at the moment to start and it really isn’t that much bigger than Blossom so he really couldn’t use her height as an excuse.

Well I had to change the saddle for him as there was no way he would have been able to ride in mine, so he choose to ride her in the balance saddle. Surprisingly he really didn’t look that bad on her, I expected him to look massive on her but he actually got away with it!

I really don’t know how to explain what he all done with her as I think he used every strategy he knew for impulsive horses to see which one he thought worked best one her. What he did tell me at the once he finished riding was he found doing lots of shoulder in and lots of counter shoulder in seemed to work well for her especially counter shoulder in as this is more difficult for her and makes her think more. He also really pushed a lot of buttons on her and really took her right to the edge and Blossom tried everything to fight Eddy. But after over an hour of Blossom fighting she eventually relaxed and really started listening to what Eddy was asking her to do and she looked like a much better pony. O it will be interesting if I notice a difference in her the next time I ride her.