Went off without a hitch

Actually, it didn't quite go that way. I had fun saying it though. I got to the barn a little late but in time for the wedding rehearsal at 1:00. Its all starting to come together now as far as the horses are concerned. Tomorrow I'm going to simplify my overly elaborate schedule of events. Then I'm going to make it complicated again by going into gory detail on how the procession of carts needs to go. Driving Imp is going to be interesting. He's a good horse but very green. His favorite way of expressing his displeasure is backing up. In the hierarchy of defiant behavior backing up ranks pretty low. But... it tends to be a gateway behavior to rearing up, which at or near the top of the hierarchy, depending on who you ask. I dont think it will be a problem but with an unfamiliar horse backing up needs to put you on high alert. Compared to Reno he really is a lot of fun to drive. I had forgotten that driving can be fun, so that was nice. Driving around amongst the hay bales was interesting too. Fortunately Imp has a very nice fan turn on him so when we got into a tight spot he was able to get us out of it. Sophie and Comet were pretty amped up and were being kept busy being driven around.

When all was said and done it was around 3:20 which meant that we didn't have much time before feeding. I got star out and decided that I'd try introducing her to cross rails. Previously I had managed to get her jumping an 18 inch vertical, but even a much lower crossrail was really scary. Star doesn't like poles to be next to each other, so thats where we started, trying to cross two poles.

She's really pretty good about one pole, but two with a space was just not OK. I pushed the poles together and with a little coaxing I got her across. I had been clicker training her so I offered her a carrot but she decided that whithered up grass would be better. Go figure. We worked our way up until we were crossing about a 5 inch cross rail and then it was time to go feed. Really I should be doing trot poles with her but I didn't feel like it. I have this fantasy that during the course of being trained to jump she will magically decide that she wants to keep her center of gravity over her feet at all times. (see pictures in previous post) I'll do trot poles next time. Really I will.