Circle or Straight?

Today was kindof an unmotivated day for me. Still I managed to get the two things I really wanted to do done. It took me a while to work up the energy to do anything complicated, so I took Dylan out.

I was going to tie him in the crossties, but then I thought I should lunge him first so he can spend some energy. I already had him in hand by the time this thought occurred to me and there was a horse at the hay barn so I couldn't very easily walk over and get the line. So I thought I'd turn him out and let him run. He's not allowed out right now because he can crawl under the fence and get in with spot but he cant get out. (Its a theme this week actually.) He just grazed on the dying grass so I thought I'd take him and groom him in the crossties, and clean some tack while he stood there.

The little sucker ran from me. Alyssa sometimes free lunges him in his pen when he does that. So I started swinging the lead rope and he ran some. It took a little while but he eventually caught on to the fact that he's supposed to be working and he actually ran a nice circle around me. I could get him to transition to the walk but I couldn't keep him walking without him stopping to graze. I decided I'd declare that to be some kind of work on Dylan, at least he'd gotten out a little.

Now it was Star's turn. I told myself I was going to try to relax more this time. That didn't work out, but I did do an even better job of not using my reins to try to slow her down at the canter. I didn't lean as much which was good. She didn't buck as much, which was nice. So that all was good.

She seems to like walking around the arena. Her ears are perked forward a lot of the time, and today she didn't even shy at the scary end of the arena. At the trot she's less happy but still pretty relaxed. At the canter she's quite worked up still. I'm thinking part of it is she has spent the most time walking around the arena (many many hours) but she has done a lot of trotting around the arena. I was mostly doing walk trot with her last summer because I just wasnt able to handle the stopping and refusing to move thing that she was doing when I asked her to canter. So, previous to this, almost every time she's picked up the canter she's been strongly discouraged.

So, ok more time cantering. This brings me to what I've been thinking about, circles or go around the arena, or go outside. We did lots of circles today, and one serpentine. We did big circles and little circles. All quite crappy, roughly as crappy as star's attitude which I would describe as barely tolerant. One way to go would be to do lots and lots and lots of circles. I'm OK with that, a lot of dressage training seems to be built on this practice and sooner or later there will be a lot of circles for her, no question.

On the other hand I could try to canter her around the arena or around the fields outside. It might give her the chance to really run and discover that she is allowed to canter without a whole lot of outside half halts telling her to stop. She might decide that she really doesnt need to go at top speed all the time. She might decide to kill one or both of us.

I cant exactly rule that out with the circles either. She really doesn't like the circles. So I'm torn. Little girl Gillian really wants her to like what she's doing, and wants to try to find a way to help her enjoy the work, or find something she does like and do that. Pragmatic Gillian agrees with mugwump who points out that they can damn well work for a living, like it or not. Compromise Gillian worries that dressage judges will be unhappy with a horse thats constantly got "schoolie ears." You know the ones worn by horses with kids thumping on their back, whom they would cheerfully kill if it wouldn't get them in so much trouble.

Thats why its so tempting to experiment around and try to find something she seems to like. She has got to be able to canter nicely, thats not negotiable. Maybe when she gets more used to all this hard arena work she'll start to enjoy it? Wimpy Gillian wants to slap side reins on her so that she will BEND BEND BEND, or at least go straight. I'm resisting that temptation though because she needs to be ridden more at this point, no more fooling around on the ground.

Ultimately I suppose I need to figure out what entertains me the most and scares me the least and just do that whether she likes it or not. Her job is to entertain me a few hours a week when I'm there. Eating berries doesnt cut it (although I do find that entertaining, I must say.) I'm going to stop agonizing now.

I drove Luca around the field today. He was very wiggly and his attention wandered a lot. I had a hard time keeping him straight but Robert was pretty pleased with how I handled the spooks and going past the mares and whatnot. He wanted me to keep Luca pretty slow, I discovered that I have a hard time judging the speed a horse is going, relative to the desired speed. Anyway, I'd say it went fairly well and some more drives like that might get me "luca certified" (my words not Robert's. ) Luca came back pretty sweaty considering that we had trotted for less than two miles, but it was a hot day and Luca sweats a lot as a matter of course.

I fed horses and Coleen gave me a ride to milwakie transit center and I caught the 75 home. I think I disappointed a lot of people walking around with the little carrier I borrowed from Robert. Its just the right size to contain something really cute, but no, just dirt and a blanket.