Lost Conection

Things have been moving along slowly and steadily with Dopie. Mostly slowly.

Riding Bestie was up last Friday so we went on a nice trail walk through the melting snow on the first nice, sunny day of the century month. Opie earned his gold star by leading the whole way, dealing with me yanking his blowing quarter sheet straight every five seconds, and not dumping me on my ass while I was mid-quarter sheet yank with one hand on the buckle completely turned around when he fell through a watery ditch. Riding out in winter is so fun, guys.

picture of errant quarter sheet by sarah

I was able to budget in enough money to finally start lessons again next month which couldn't have come at a better time. While I don't feel at all like I'm in over my head here, having a trainer on-site that I want to work with and whose training process I trust really shuts down any burning desire to battle through the hard stuff on my own.

You've turned into a massive shit at the canter? No problemo. Guess who gets to deal with it next week? Not me!

bad baby horse? never!

I feel like Opie has reached a point in his canter where he's no longer so weak and unbalanced that his only option is to listen to me or fall over and die. However, just because he's slightly stronger and slightly more balanced does not mean tuning me out is suddenly an option either which is where his little pea brain is headed. We might still fall over and die, it will just be at a higher rate of speed.

So I've shelved the canter until next Friday when BM will be riding him for our first lesson, and she can get a feel of what all his various disjointed baby horse body parts are doing to best help me going forward.

In the meantime, there are still a gazillion other newbie issues to work through.

like going on his third halter in three months since he officially
killed the first and the second one rubbed his giant noggin. 

His mounting block issues were resolved through candy bribery. He now stands quietly and politely while I get on and waits patiently for his cookie to be doled out for doing so. Only now he thinks the second the candy is in his mouth he's free to move about the cabin. Nah. You've still gotta stand, amigo. The feet don't get to move until I say they do.

He's also been a bargey asshole on the ground the past few days, so we've been reviewing the Personal Bubble and Don't Pass My Shoulder rules.

Really though, the main focus has been trying to rid him of the false frame mid-neck bulge that looks cute as shit as he prances around, but is obviously no good for anything.

so adorbs. such a faker.

I do love that his default is not to llama but to frame up, and while he takes the connection nicely and lightly, it's not correct work and I'm massively paranoid of fucking him up and letting him get away with cheating. He's got a short neck as it is, the last thing I want to do is encourage him to make it even shorter especially in the wrong part.

He's easier to convince to stretch out at the walk, but at the trot it's a big issue. I can float the reins at him completely and he won't move an inch. He holds his rhythm--he doesn't take advantage and blow off--which is nice, but there's literally no horse in my hand. Riding him more forward does nothing. He just opens up his stride and stays stuck in his little self-set head carriage.

I've been trying to talk to him by sponging my ring fingers softly as a little, "Hello, things are happening in your mouth. Would you like to participate?" That helps one day, but not the next, and then only a little the day after that.

He'll get there. If Bobby taught me anything, it's that stretching can be just as hard as collection to learn. That's our main focus at the moment though. We do a lot of walking, occasionally with some baby leg yields and moving the shoulders around to break up the boredom.

i also try to let him do some jumpies to break up the boredom,
but WOW is he bad at it.

There's a game night at the barn this weekend we'll be participating in. No real training will be going on there obvi, but any time he has to Horse in a crowded ring will serve him well in his future show horse glory days. Hopefully.

momo selfie photo bomb. this horse and his selfies, guys.
he's so #basic sometimes.