Another Lesson, Signed Up for a Clinic and Dithering About a Horse Show

We had another great lesson with SW early Sunday morning.  We were outside again, starting in the round pen, and we had the added chaos of turnout starting after we had begun our ground work.  Cruise was predictably distracted and excited and we even had a rear and waving of the front legs.  This elicited some smacking of his chest by me with the end of the rope, some intense circles and footwork, and a return of his focus to me.  After this he actually settled pretty well with some little loses of focus in hand and under saddle, but I was able to quickly get him back.  It’s going to be a process of lost it, got it, lost it, with hopefully, got it coming quicker and quicker.  We were much straighter under saddle this time thanks to withers AND shoulders on the line of travel.  SW also gave me a couple of great pointers including doing a change of direction at the sitting trot through a 20m circle to get better balance and a few steps of slightly collected trot to forward to jazz up his trot a bit when he gets chest down.  We then walked to the outdoor for the first time and did 5-10 minutes of quiet walk work to end with pats and treats.

SW is hosting a working equitation clinic mid-July and I signed us up for the first day, which is introduction to some of the obstacles.  We should only be with 3 other horses and two clinicians for our hour forty five session.  I’m not super interested in WE, even though I think it’s pretty cool, but I figured this would be another way to get some more exposure in a lower stress environment.  The nice thing is that I can start in hand and hop on as he settles.

I’m also dithering about going to a horse show the weekend before the clinic.  I’ve got an email out to the show director to see if there are any stalls left.  If so, I think I’m going to enter one class with the intention of scratching, get there, wandering around a lot in hand, doing some ground work and seeing how he settles.  Going on previous behavior I think it will all be a bit much for him, but hopefully I can get him in and out of his stall a few times to do some ground work, and maybe get him under saddle as the day progresses and the show gets less busy.

Honestly, I’m looking forward to the clinic but not at all to going to shows.  It seems like it will be FOREVER before I can take him to a show, have him focus on me, and I can actually think about riding my test.  I know it will come, but this is my least favorite part of the process of bringing on a green horse.  I am very privileged to have such a nice horse, money to show, and etc. just not excited for what I know needs to come next to have a solid horse in other venues.  So it goes though, and I am excited by how his under saddle work is progressing at home.  He is getting to be so fun to ride.