Sometimes I get so caught up in how freaking amazing my mare is that I forget she's still green, still learning, still a 'baby'. I tend to rush my rides- I get on, ride, get off, because of time limitations and that overwhelming amount of horses I have the responsibility of getting out. This works for most of them- Willie's always raring to go, Status needs to work as much as he possibly can, and Webbie doesn't necessarily need to be ridden hard as long as he stretches his legs. But if I hop on Rush and ask her to trot, you can bet your breeches it's going to be a bad ride.
This frustrates me to no end. When I have two hours to get three horses out, I needneedneed them to be ready to work when I hop on. And she just isn't. She needs 5-10 minutes of meandering, stretchy, loose walking before I can get working, and I never get a satisfying ride in unless I trot her on the buckle for another five minutes. I know all this- I know that she needs this ridiculously long amount of time before I can reasonably ask her to start reaching into my contact, and I ignore it anyways. WHY do I ignore it anyways?
I need to slow down. I don't know how I'll make it work, but I have to slow down or I'll keep having bad rides like the ones I had last weekend. We've kind of hit a road block in that she gets riled up and obstinate when I work on flat, then calms down through the jumping. I'm thinking I need to ixnay the jumping for now, until she starts actively working with me on the flat instead of going through the set WTC routine and fighting with me if I try to switch it up. Which stinks for me, because I love jumping, but I need her to start participating willingly in learning new things or else we're not going to make it anywhere.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Monumental Progress
It's been.. a few months since I last updated. When I last posted, things were inching along with Rush. We mad progress, but it was slow and fitful, and often every step forward resulted in a huge leap backwards the next time I got on. Fast forward three months and it couldn't be going better. When my sister came home, things got a hell of a lot easier and more manageable, a) because she wasn't burned out from riding like I was and b) because she could get Rush out on days I had too much schoolwork (aka 3/4 days a week).
Until then I hadn't let anybody else on Rush, mostly because although I may not be the best rider in the world, she trusts me and nobody else at my barn is capable of handling a green horse. One time, through miscommunication and someone's complete disregard of any logical thought processes, someone else got on her- and proceeded to wreck weeks of work. That was fun. My sister, however, is a phenomenal rider and has worked with less than perfect horses before, so I fully trusted her with riding Rush.
For approximately a month Rush got out every day, which allowed us to get her to the point where she actually felt tired and became manageable enough to train and correct things without the situation blowing up. She trots beautifully now, canters superb to the right- a little less superb to the left, but still pretty damn fantastic- and has jumped 3 ft. Oh, and we can do a 2'6 course pretty damn well. There's still a lot of work to do: she's pretty crooked and gets uppity when I fix her, she has to canter to the right first or else she'll be strong and unruly to the left, leg yielding has produced some very interesting hissy-fits, and she has a lot of trouble bending correctly through circles.
Without any further ado, enjoy Rush jumping adorably!
Until then I hadn't let anybody else on Rush, mostly because although I may not be the best rider in the world, she trusts me and nobody else at my barn is capable of handling a green horse. One time, through miscommunication and someone's complete disregard of any logical thought processes, someone else got on her- and proceeded to wreck weeks of work. That was fun. My sister, however, is a phenomenal rider and has worked with less than perfect horses before, so I fully trusted her with riding Rush.
For approximately a month Rush got out every day, which allowed us to get her to the point where she actually felt tired and became manageable enough to train and correct things without the situation blowing up. She trots beautifully now, canters superb to the right- a little less superb to the left, but still pretty damn fantastic- and has jumped 3 ft. Oh, and we can do a 2'6 course pretty damn well. There's still a lot of work to do: she's pretty crooked and gets uppity when I fix her, she has to canter to the right first or else she'll be strong and unruly to the left, leg yielding has produced some very interesting hissy-fits, and she has a lot of trouble bending correctly through circles.
Without any further ado, enjoy Rush jumping adorably!
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