I had Sue run around a little bit in the obstacle course. She did beautifully.
There were quite a few horses in the arena…well there were seven of us. Part of the arena had standing water so that became one of the ground games we played before we got on. Heck, I sent Sue right into the mud and water. No problemo! She is a deluxe trail horse, gottcha!
Back out to the mounting block where we sat quietly for a while after I groaned and screamed at my knee. I have hurt my knee. Twisting my leg to get my foot into the stirrup was painful. After I finally got my foot into the stirrup, it was fine.
We entered the arena and Sue did JEST FINE!
Jenny had us doing moving things which was great. We walked and did haunches in…and then we trotted and did haunches in. Sue gaited and now and then we fell into the pace.
When everyone was out on the rail, Sue spooked at something behind us and off we went. I was sooo proud of my body. It stayed nice and relaxed. Just when half of my haunches decided to remove itself from the saddle, I reined Sue back. She slowed down immediately.
Sue was still upset at something. We traveled along and Sue lowered her head and touched her chest. She startled at that. I just giggled at her. Silly Sue…scared of her own body. Then we were OK!
Jenny was impressed at the length of our spook. I told her it was because I’m not scared anymore and I just let her go until I got off balance.
Jenny had everyone else do things at a walk, but she told us to “trot” around. That relaxes Sue and Jenny likes to see Sue loosen up and get relaxed. We know right when she gets relaxed because she hits a “gait”. When she gets extra comfortable and starts to speed up, she goes into a nifty little trot which she can hold for about 50′. Then we straggle back into a running walk. The trot hurt my knee for a while, but then it was fine.
There was one stretch where we got stuck at the far end of the arena. I couldn’t tell what she was scared of. She politely refuses to go where I tell her and I know that she is scared of another horse. I couldn’t see that there was another horse close enough for her to be scared, but oh well. Finally, her feet became unstuck and we managed to move. Guess what would have happened if I spanked her to move. Yep…not a good idea!
There are times when she slows down and breaks gait while we are on the rail. I squeeze my legs to speed her up. when she ignores that, I slap my thigh lightly and she startles and speeds up.
We did great the rest of the lesson. We did the drop to a trot lead changes at a trot and dropped to a walk. She gets really relaxed when doing these and we always get into a trot. She likes doing this when she is the only horse moving in the arena!
I can see the writing on the blog wall now. Our blog is almost over. Sue is on the fast track to recovery.
I do want the animal communicator to talk to her again to see what she is thinking now.
We have a clinic on July 8th, a 3 hour group lesson on July 15th and surely I will find the time to go on a real trail ride with her.
Once we finish a successful trail ride, I’ll sum up what happened and end the blog.
It will be a happy ending with a happy horse.