Tuesday morning, Mike, Shannon and I made our way out to the barn before we dropped Shannon off with my Mom for her first sleepover (!!).
Willow and I had had such a good ride on Monday that I wanted to keep the momentum going, even though Mike and I had planned a nice getaway in Stowe for our anniversary. Mike is really starting to understand what horse ‘crazy’ means! He’s a good sport.
Willow was a peach on the ground, and Mike is even starting to learn how to tack her up and lunge her! She was perfect, even though all her friends were outside and she didn’t get to go play at all after her breakfast. She didn’t pull any of her usual shennanigans going to the right on the lunge line, and stood like a champ while I waited for B to get back.
Aren’t my breeches super sexy? 
I finally made the executive decision to get on and practice our stop and go buttons while we waited for B to get home.
It was an epic fail. Willow decided that she had been waiting much to long, and she was done. We got one circle under out belt, then she swung her massive bay butt towards the barn and refused to move. I squeezed and she pinned her ears and swished her tail. I squeezed and clucked. She started backing up. Wrong button. We stopped and gathered ourselves, then I squeezed again. She actually pinned her ears, swung her head around, and bit my boot! Wench. I saw B making her way over to the ring, and decided to stop and wait for her.
I’m a little bit disappointed in myself for chickening out and waiting for help. I’ve done this a million (well okay, not quite a million…) times and I knew that I knew how to handle the situation.
B got there and we got moving in the proper direction, down to the end of the ring furthest away from the barn. The goal for that day was to trot, but since Miss decided to throw another tempertantrum, we worked on go, stop, go a few more times and ended on a good note.
She’s a testy one, but she’s also smart. She’s tested me on the ground, the lunge line, and now in the tack. I have to trust in my abilities to know how to work through it, and I have to trust in her that she’s just testing. This is all brand new to her. Hopefully that will work in my favor once I learn to trust that the worst she is going to do is bite my boot.
I’m feeling a little bit of pressure (from no one but myself!) to really do a good job with her. She’s the nicest horse that I have ever brought along, and I’m nervous about what is going to happen when we leave the safety blanket that is B and her knowledge. I’m sure that we’ll be fine, but I’m feeling the pressure from myself not to screw it all up!
She is my once in a lifetime opportunity!
No comments:
Post a Comment