Mayhem and Ensuing Trauma

So we left off having a totally awesomesauce ride. Friday, not so much. I was originally going to warm up on the flat and then set up a jump course, so that I had more maneuverability while flatting, but she was a ball of fire and blowing through everything so I decided to just work over fences. For some reason, she really settles down over fences- I think it just engages her mind more and it something she truly enjoys, so she settles down to working instead of fighting with me.

I just put a cavaletti on each long diagonal and did figure eights over them, first at the trot and then at the canter. She was definitely bracing to them and taking off long instead of waiting for me, but we worked through it and she settled down to loping over them with me. I was happy enough with that, so I called it quits and got off.

And then.. ugh. I unsaddled her in the ring, to give her a little turnout, and then took the bridle off. She tried to take off while I was slipping the bridle over her head and caught the bit in her mouth, flinging herself backwards and dragging me a few feet before she dropped it and bolted off. Obviously this was not acceptable behavior, so I waited until she stopped running about then caught her in order to do more on-off of the bridle until she stood still and waited. Unfortunately, she had other ideas.

I looped the reins around her neck and was bringing the bit up to her mouth when she decided not to play ball and bolted off, dragging me with her. I was holding the bridle, and the reins were around her neck- I had a brief moment of debate in my mind whether to try and keep holding on or not, and decided to drop the bridle with the hope that she would stop once there wasn't resistance. No such luck. She took off around the ring, tangling the bridle up in her back legs, and quite frankly scaring us both to death. I really, truly thought she was going to break a leg.

Instead, she stopped in a corner and let me unbuckle the reins and untangle the rest of the bridle from her legs. And then she just stood there for a bit, every muscle tense and trembling. So obviously we were a little traumatized from that. I got a halter and walked her around a bit; she had no swelling or abrasions and walked off sound so I thanked my lucky stars, cold hosed each leg for several minutes, and then had to run off to my bus.

Making It All Worth It

Working with Rush is a lot like driving down a street with ridiculously long street lights. You can be rushing along, making mad progress, and then the brakes are engaged and you wait. And wait. And wait. And just when you've just about torn your hair out from the frustration
of waiting and making no progress, the light changes.

That's what it's been like since I started riding her. We'd get stuck on an issue, make no progress for a while, send me into spirals of frustration and despair, and then one day something would change (maybe she felt sorry for me) and we would catapult past the problem, making rapid progress in a relatively short frame of time. It's frustrating as hell, because nobody likes to plateau, especially when there is so much to learn.

But rides like the one I had last week are what makes it all worth it. Ever since the impending decision that Rush will get leased out this summer (more on that later) at a hunter/jumper barn, I decided it was time to get back into jumping bootcamp. Originally, when I had moved to the dressage barn I'm at, I had ambitiously decided to jump once or twice a week.. however, the size of a dressage ring being shared between three people is not exactly conducive to setting up jumps, and there's almost always someone riding when I am at the barn, so I opted for just doing flatwork instead of cramming jumps into an already crowded ring. Plus I only had two standards and a couple really odd large plastic poles, which Rush hits pretty consistently and are lightweight enough to be knocked down, so I was having to get off after every jump to reset it. Not worth it.

Last week, however, I scrounged up four cavalettis that had been hiding out behind some trailers and dragged them over to the ring (WHY ARE THEY SO HEAVY??). I set up a two stride line, a single on the other long side of the ring, and the last one when down a long diagonal. I honestly don't really know what I was expecting- we haven't schooled courses since before she went lame last year, let alone any two strides, so this was one of my "we'll try it out, see how it goes, and adjust from there" moments. And I'm glad I did, because BOY was she perfect!

I is a goobers

I might have to attribute some of her lightness and responsiveness to the transition work we had done in the previous ride, but she was listening and relaxed and not running to jumps, and it was simply a stellar ride. We warmed up on the flat briefly- she even offered a change (but then got a little excited afterwards), then hopped over the single both ways to warm up my eye. I trotted the course first (down single, up two stride, down diagonal, up single) and she was perfect- waiting, coming back from the canter when I asked her to, keeping a consistent pace- and I cantered the course twice after, both of which went quite smoothly. She changed her lead over the diagonal fence every time (that's my girl!) and came back quickly to a trot if I needed her to change in a corner. The only spot of trouble we had was in the two stride, as I had forgotten to shorten it for her stride. She kind of bullied through it each time, running because she didn't know if she could make it otherwise, but came back after the second fence every time so I didn't push it during the course.

After we finished the course work I took her through the two stride a few more times each way until I had convinced her that it was possible to get through it without running willy nilly. She just really doesn't trust her stride to get her up to things, so she gets fast instead of opening up and lengthening. I tried to correct this by giving her a really quality, forward canter up to the first jump, then half halting upon the landing (as an attempt to catch her before she started running) and giving a conservative release over the second fence in order to hold her together more. It seemed to work, as after a few times through she got the hang of it and was cruising through.

Then everything went to hell in a handbasket Friday, but more on that later.