Frustrated.

[HayleyUK]

Just a little vent I'm afraid, I'm so frustrated with myself & my mare today!

Background: My mare is 15, never been asked to work properly from behind into the hand really & recently I've been taken with the idea of dressaging with her. Que a few lessons with a trainer & this really highlighted the fact she just pushes back at me on the right rein. Cow!
So we toodle through this little problem & start getting her to work through into the bridle in W/T on both reins with a little bit of inconstancy but yeah.. its a start.

My last lesson threw up the fact that when you start working her, she runs through your hand because she obviously finds is easier/more fun to lift her head and get quicker so we worked on rhythm and keeping her into my hand not shooting through it.

Today comes & she was the cowbag of all cowbags, kept running through my hand, ignoring any attempts I made to soften her into my hand etc & i just got so frustrated with her! I got off, chucked her out & thought [****] it.. well, now I'm annoyed with myself for letting her away with it but I really just ran out of solutions to the problem.

Its also looking like I've lost my trainer as well, which may turn out to be a good thing because maybe its her methods that aren't working for us? I don't know, I just know I'm hugely annoyed with the pair of us & am wondering if I'm being a bit mean expecting her to change now?

Anyone else ever get like this?

 

[OrangeEmpire]

Don't worry, 15 is not too young to change. I've spent the past 2 years doing a total overhaul of my TB's way of going (he's 17 in June). You wouldn't recognise him from the horse of 2 years ago.

It will take time, she'll be stiff and you'll have lots of ARGH! moments. But it will be worth it so hang on in there.

I presume you have checked that it is just ignorance rather than discomfort which is causing her to resist?

 

[HayleyUK]

Yeah, its just sheer bloody mindedness. She's 100% sound in her teeth, back etc.

She'll do it to the left 85% of the time but on the right just shoves back at me as if to say 'go away'. I'm suspecting shes getting a bit bored of it, so plan to give her a break and jump on Saturday.

Felt like killing her earlier!

 

[Magic_Sparks]

This is the problem when i got my jumping pony, he was horrible to ride. He used to ignore me all the time and i got really really annoyed and put him back in the stable and left him for a few days but he never changed. so i decided i was going to stick to it. i put so much work into him you would have tough he should have been perfect. but it took a long time. Iv been at him for 6 months now and hes slowly coming around and i know he will always be a bit bad a times because he is an older pony and i think they always improve but always have a small bit of their old ways but will come right. Now he wins a lot for me and we are going blue chip for two classes. So hold in there, there are a lot of very frustrating moments where you just want to give up but it will all pay off. Good luck with everything