Bit of a lesson report for the fuzzy thug

[Boulty]

Sooo I was off last week & was supposed to have a lesson on Tuesday. Box decided as it had been mildly chilly (but still above zero) it did not wish to get out of bed that morning. In fact it did not wish to even turn over & the entire dashboard was flashing at me. One jumpstart from equine rescue later it was decided that the battery was utterly dead. After some ringing around found a garage that could source one but waiting around for them to source it then getting it fitted (plus getting the fuzzball's feet trimmed) wasted most of my morning so rescheduled for the Friday.

Of course everything froze solid overnight on Thursday... Including my instructor's outdoor school

Rescheduled AGAIN for this morning at a local indoor. Lorry started, pony in from field. Tried to drop the ramp & discovered it was totally frozen up at one side. Kettle wouldn't pour properly so ended up putting boiling water in the watering can & eventually it decided to open!

Anyhow eventually arrived vaguely on time, got tacked up & went through the door to discover invasion of the pigeons! Luckily they did mainly watch & weren't in a divebombing mood.

I think it's possibly only the second or third time he's been in an indoor but tbh he does seem to mostly settle quicker in them as there's less things to look at & get distracted by! Was some dressage boards out which he's not seen before but that was a bit of a non event tbf (they did have the positive effect of making me ride more accurately though)

Did do some nice work in walk & trot practicing shallow loops, circles, centre lines & generally having a play with getting him straight & using his body properly which is starting to be pretty consistent in walk & slowly coming together in trot (when I leave his mouth alone & steer properly from my seat).

Unfortunately we then tried to take advantage of the huge arena & tried for a canter. This is not a button I've used since he came back from being backed as had a period where his saddle was away being adjusted followed by a yard move & crap ground plus nobody to follow into it out hacking (which I know would be the preferred method). Basically this was a failure and all that occurred was faster trotting. (Combination of him not being sure what I actually wanted, being a bit tired by that point & being a giver of minimal effort anyway, me trying too hard & basically getting in the way & then not being able to breathe as apparently my chest is not as over the evil flu bug of a few weeks ago as I thought). Have decided that a better plan next time is for my instructor to get on first, get a few canter transitions to remind him what he's supposed to be doing.

Still got back in one piece so that's something. He managed to pee in the lorry twice as revenge... As this kind of weather is not ideal for drying the matting out I think I'm going to have to start putting some shavings down as he seems to delight in using the box as a toilet!

 

[TPO]

Lots of positives to take away from your trip.

At least you got the 3 bits of bad luck out of the way before you left your yard.

Sounds like a good plan for your next trip too.

Thanks for sharing ?

 

[WispyBegs]

Sounds like a stressful start to your trip out!
Lots of positives and it’s always helpful to see your instructor riding your horse too so a good plan ?
Let us know how your next lesson goes!

 

[oldie48]

One of ours used to pee as soon as he was loaded, another refused to pee away from home which was not helpful in an eventer! You just can't win. Sounds like a useful lesson though. One of my trainers used to have a plastic owl in the corner of the school to keep the pigeons at bay but once they got used to it they used it as a perch!

 

[j1ffy]

You have the worst luck with lorries!! Glad it worked in the end.

As others have said, there are loads of positives there - travelling well (and peeing), good walk and trot work and a plan for next time. I've been working on Chilli's canter for two years and have only just got (back) to the point where we can do a sensible transition in each direction so don't panic!

 

[humblepie]

Sounds like lots of positives and well done for getting out and about.

 

[Boulty]

I think I need to try a different colour of lorry next time... It seems that the red ones are problematic!

I think one of the issues is that I know when he goes into canter on the lunge (which again I've not asked for in a while as ground not good enough) he does like to have a little bronc sometimes (lack of balance related I think as no way he'd put effort into anything he didn't need to!) which I think is making me ride defensively which erm obviously doesn't help matters & is probably part of what's blocking him.