Bad ponies

Thursday Keno was a pain in the butt. I had to open the gate to get in the arena and when we turned to close it, he backed up, did a little hoppity rear thing, etc. I smacked him a few times with the crop and he settled down. But it was raining and sometimes the rain would drift in through the open side and he couldn't deal with it. He was resisting the bit and crooked and just generally unpleasant. When he decided maybe the answer was offering to rear, I trotted him a little longer, then lunged him for a few minutes. He turned and faced me a few times, but I got him moving again. Then we trotted around and around and around for probably about twenty minutes until he was relaxed, had his head down and was maintaining a light contact.

Saturday I got there and Robert and I pulled out Luca. Tillie is super-fascinated by him, and her fenceline offers her a really good look when she's in the crossties. She kept calling to him, and Luca is not one to resist a cute girl, so we had some talks about that. He'd fuss, and I'd say "Luuuucaaaa" in a deep voice and he'd stop and stare at me with the "who, me?" look. We put the collar etc. on and he really does look like a little draft horse. Robert took him out to pull the tire (to prepare for plowing). It was on the grass, and the ground was pretty soft, and Luca couldn't get the tire started with Robert on it. He was pretty game though, he'd try doing a pivot turn to get it started, it just wasn't moving. So Robert had to get off and let him drag it onto the gravel, then hopped on. It was clearly a lot of work for Luca, but you could see how much of it was working off his hind end- his front legs were moving freely, but his hinds stayed very underneath him. I went for a short ride with him afterwards with a saddle. He was fine with that, but kind of tired. His left lead is MUCH more reliable, but he has problems not dropping his shoulder in the corners. We're looking at a show in three weeks, in Astoria. Lunging Luca with a rider might be helpful.

Got Keno out, he was much better than Thursday. He didn't want to give me his face at the canter, so I sort of shrugged, and we cantered around until he did give it to me. I'm working on seeing what I do to ask for the canter, because I wouldn't be surprised if his random canters aren't completely based on his whims. Sweaty pony by the end, but not actually breathing very hard after a minute or two of walking. Sometimes I forget he's fit.

Niki had a major case of the crazies today. I'd closed her door because she was going outside and I didn't want her wet. She was bucking and rearing in her stall, even while I was in there, but as far away from me as she could possibly get. I hope she's in heat. She tacked up fine if a little wiggly, and I like how she'll stand very happily at the mounting block until I ask her to move out. We had more trot drama, especially left rein. She also did a little hoppity rear thing, which I wasn't impressed by. We kept trotting until she did it right, then walked. I've developed a policy where if she doesn't want to walk, okay, we don't walk. We trot for a while, then walk again. She's picking up on this. Halt and walking are definitely her happy places, but she's got enough energy she can't always deal with it right away. We spooked once at a corner but came right back. When I thought we were done and walking, she jigged so we trotted. She decided to trot sideways, so I began with using my leg to correct this. She promptly started cowkicking. Again, unimpressed. I figured if she really wanted to work on her lateral work, as long as she was trotting and going the right direction, I could care less. A few kicks later, Niki decided this was way too hard and went straight again. Then we walked.

I have a maybe-bad habit of working her on the far end of the arena because there are definitive corners there, where wall meets wall. As a result, she gets a little excited whenever we walk by the gate. I'm trying to compensate for this by walking all over the ring, and only doing trot circles in the far end. So, we headed outside. She was pretty okay with all of this, very alert but mostly relaxed. We stopped further from the culvert than before- there were power tool noises from the neighbors' archway, but also Shires plowing on the other side. She did remember about the pots with the grass in them, walked up and grabbed a mouthful. We spent a long time standing, going forward and backwards. I just sat there and kept her nose in the right direction. We made it up to the long puddle in front of the culvert, sidepassed over to the tree on the other side of the road, sidepassed back, and thought about it some more. I figured we weren't going to make it over today either, but asked her for a couple more steps. I think the Shires were the deciding factor for her. She took the couple steps, hesitated, and then walked over the culvert. We stopped, I hopped off, we went and untacked. She did another stupid reary thing when the Shires walked past her when I was taking her back to her stall, so we talked about that, and she seemed understanding if entirely unrepentant. I hope she was in heat, otherwise I'm in for a fun time for a while.